Currently, I believe the tab title is being underused. During the game, it’s used for saying if moves have been made or, when the game is finished, to say the game is finished.
Why not also add some more useful information? For example, why not add the name of the players at least? Sometimes I have a bunch of tabs of games open and they all mostly have the same unhelpful text.
Useful in this context is a subjective label.
Useful in this context is a subjective label.
I believe this is one of the very rare contexts in which this is not the case. Having the title tabs to all repeat the same information goes against anything useful, it squashes every piece of different information into the same label — it also even goes against the physics/Shannon’s definition of information, which is based on rarity.
What you consider as useful, others will consider useless.
Therefore subjective.
Your fancy worded arguments do not change that.
There’s a limit to this usefulness/subjectivity dichotomy. However I will abstain from continuing this discussion, but feel free to type the same character N times in the next comment, I’m sure someone will find it useful.
@psygo I agree with you, and have this setting turned on turned off. Screenshot was from mobile where I don’t pay attention to tab names:
So maybe the correct question is “should this be the default?”
@benjito, nice catch, thank you. I didn’t know this config existed.
Personally, I believe, that showing the players’ names is far more useful and more intuitively should be the default, but it’s interesting to have this configuration. But also why not show whose turn it is and the players’ names? Maybe a third config for this topic?
It seems that the current dynamic behavior is saying something like “Black to move”, “White to move”, or “(X) moves made”. Maybe it could say something like “PlayerName (Black) to move” instead of the first pattern, or even “Your turn vs OpponentName” if it is one of your own games where it is your turn. In your games where it is not your turn, maybe it could be “OpponentName’s turn vs You”, and for other people’s games, maybe the pattern could look like “PlayerA (Color) to move vs PlayerB”. The last pattern (with the move counting, which I suppose mostly comes up when spectating a game and looking away) could perhaps be redesigned as “(X) moves made in PlayerA vs PlayerB”. Just some quick thoughts, and these could probably be improved upon. In editing this, I think I even suggested two alternatives for the same thing.
These would result in longer tab titles, which might get cut off on some browsers, but I think that is fine, since it is not super critical information. If people are able to see it and find it helpful, then that’s good, but if some gets cut off, it’s not such a big deal. However, we should think about exactly how to best format that information to make good use of the space, and perhaps put higher priority information first to be less likely to be cut off.
AFAIK the behaviour currently default is “Your move” - in case it is your move. “Black/White to move” - in case it is opponent’s move or “X moves made” - in case you are just observing.
This is not based on any objective data - but from my gut feeling I do not think that many players are jugling several open tabs at once. Certainly not in live games and in correspondence games it does not seem that crucial. But regardless, the currently default “your move” seem to indeed be the most crucial information so that players know to return to their game if they are loitering elsewhere in the meantime.
Player’s names does not seem to be such an urgent info to me, priority should be whether an action is required on the tab, right?
IMO the job of a tab name is to tell me “which page am I on?”
“Your move” does not do this, “benjito vs. evil_benjito” does (although granted I could be playing two games against Evil Benjito)
In my perfect world, I would like it to be some identifying information (“playera vs playerb”) normally, and blink “Your Turn” on a 1 second timer when it is my turn
Haha, sorry, I didn’t have an ongoing games where it was my turn, so that I could check.
I think that we could address both concerns, of prioritizing information and clarifying which tab is which.
I think that “Your move vs OpponentName” is more helpful than just “Your move”
No argument there.
It should have opponent name first, since you know who you are and a bunch of tabs with your name on them aren’t much use.
I will also note that the optional setting was created in response to a tournament streamer asking for that behaviour … it’d be worth making sure that whatever use-case it was they wanted it for doesn’t get broken. (I can’t remember the details now, quite some time ago).
I don’t think it makes a difference once one has many tabs open. Becomes fairly impossible to read any tab titles anyway with how squashed they end up.
I imagine for correspondence people want to know when there’s moves made to come back (if they don’t have notifications or something on). Similarly they could be watching a game and want to know how many moves have happened since.
That seems like it works fine to me, even with many tabs open. Doesn’t seem like a terrible default.
In order to avoid diving into hypotheticals, I will share my use-case (which I assume is shared by at least a few others, if not with Go club games, then perhaps watching a tournament semi-finals):
Indeed, my use case is simply just to see the number of moves since last I checked.
That number in brackets is useful when watching a game on and off, especially long time control games of tournament games, pro games etc.
The rest probably not so useful. I wouldn’t necessarily open a new window just for OGS games, so they get added to a list of other open tabs and I won’t see much more in the tab name.
So to me it’s doesn’t matter much what it says, it can be changed and I won’t notice, but I like the number of moves since I last checked.
Do many people sit and read the names of their tabs to decide which one they’re going to click on, or do they tend to just swap between them? If there’s three or four games, three or four tabs, why not just click into them to see how the game is going, then click the next one. Seems you get far more from the page than the tab name anyway.
Anyway none of that precludes making the tab name better, may as well make it better for whoever wants it better.
I definitely rely on tab names when selecting a tab! Reading is much faster than clicking. At some point I should probably learn how to use keyboard shortcuts to switch tabs, but I imagine that’s still slower than just scanning the tab bar…
It’s sort of like being in the office hallway. Sure you can open every door and see who’s inside, but it’s much easier if their name is on the door.
I like “your move”/“Black/White to move”. It is useful if you are playing a live game while doing something else
I don’t think it makes a difference once one has many tabs open. Becomes fairly impossible to read any tab titles anyway with how squashed they end up.
For a bazillion tabs open, it’s gonna be hard to find a feasible solution anyway. But, for 5-10 for example, I would much rather have the names of the players there.
There are other ways of making distinctions rather than pure text. For example, I think it’s possible to change colors, put blink effects, italics, etc. But don’t quote me on that, I don’t know how wide the tab title features span.
My use case is that of a Go teacher, and streamer. I stream reviews of an online Go club I manage and it’s sometimes super annoying trying to which tab is which game, it makes handling other people playing while trying to help more annoying.
At some point I should probably learn how to use keyboard shortcuts to switch tabs,
Ctrl + (Shift)Tab cycles through tabs in chronological order. Ctrl + PgUp/PgDown cycles through tabs next to each other.
