safari 15 separate tabs

[Mac7]

When using separate tabs in safari 15, is it possible to have the tab bar not take up the whole length of the window when there is only 1 tab open?

 

[Gregg2]

Well, yeah. I have tiny icons of my most frequently used websites in my Tabs bar. (Sorry, I can't remember the "official" term for them, or, at this point, how I put them there!) But I assume that's not what you mean, as a single tab takes up the rest of the width. What is the reason you want to shorten it?

 

[Tagbert]

Well, yeah. I have tiny icons of my most frequently used websites in my Tabs bar. (Sorry, I can't remember the "official" term for them, or, at this point, how I put them there!) But I assume that's not what you mean, as a single tab takes up the rest of the width. What is the reason you want to shorten it?

those are "pinned" tabs

Otherwise, yet, it would be better if you only have one or two tabs, that they not be forced to span the whole window. it makes them look less like tabs and harder to distinguish from the rest of the window.

 

[svenmany]

When using separate tabs in safari 15, is it possible to have the tab bar not take up the whole length of the window when there is only 1 tab open?

Funny, I do use separate tabs and don't see that behavior. When I have more than one tab open, I have, from the top on down:

- The toolbar (which includes the url box)
- The favorites bar
- The tabs of the various pages that are open (I think this is what you mean by the "tab bar")

When I have just a single tab open, I only get the first two.

 

[Mac7]

Funny, I do use separate tabs and don't see that behavior. When I have more than one tab open, I have, from the top on down:

- The toolbar (which includes the url box)
- The favorites bar
- The tabs of the various pages that are open (I think this is what you mean by the "tab bar")

When I have just a single tab open, I only get the first two.

Did that recently change? I swear one tab used to stretch the whole way but now there is no tab level

 

[svenmany]

Did that recently change? I swear one tab used to stretch the whole way but now there is no tab level

Apple has certainly made recent changes to tab layout in Safari. I'm afraid I'm not observant enough to have taken notice if that was part of those changes.

 

[Tagbert]

Apple has certainly made recent changes to tab layout in Safari. I'm afraid I'm not observant enough to have taken notice if that was part of those changes.

the layout seems to be different depending on if you have exactly 1 tab or more than one.

1 tab - the tab bar does not appear
1 pinned tab - the tab bar appears and you have 1 small pinned tab and one tab with "Start Page" that spans the whole rest of the window. the single tab is so wide it doesn't look much like a tab.
2 tabs - each tab spans half the window. neither one looks very much like a tab as a result.
X tabs - the tab bar is subdivided by the number of tabs. they start to look more like a tab, now.

my preference would be that tabs occupy the space required to show their titles until the tab bar is full and then start shrinking the tabs. This makes them look more like the tab metaphor. It's not a big deal, but Apple has been eroding the connection between the abstract concepts in the browser and the metaphors that we use to interact and I'm not sure that the abstraction is a net positive.