About 5 years ago, my PC desktop screen was starting to look a lot like the image here on the left. Cluttered with a myriad of windows, it was getting so that I couldn't even bring a background window to the foreground because (a) I couldn't identify it any longer and (b) no matter where I clicked on a background window, it was a 'hot spot' that caused something to happen when I didn't want it to. I just wanted to bring the window to the front but ended up executing a macro or changing the view etc because modern applications have pretty much < 1% of the active window that is not a clickable area for executing something !
So in 2012, we successfully converted ALL of our usual desktop apps over to cloud, or web based services. This was wonderful. It gave me bragging rights at parties and a feeling of smug accomplishment.
But just today, I realised that I have created a monster in another form. You see, I just realised that my normal working day now requires me to open up at least 25 tabs on my browser. Just to get my day to day work done. For some specialist tasks, I am looking at around 40 browser windows.
This is NOT counting the other tabs I will need to open up for research or fact finding.
I am beginning to loath it when Chrome crashes, and when I click 'Restore Tabs', I have to wait about 10 minutes whilst it reloads content in 50+ tabs.
I used to get upset when the number of tabs negated the titles of the web sites, so I began to rely on the little favicons to identify which tabs did what. Now even the favicons are being obscured by a veritable tsunami of grey tabs, and it is common for me to accidentally hit the 'x' close button instead of the actual tab when switching with a mouse. Alas I lack the pin point mouse accuracy of an SAS sniper.
I need to consider shutting down some of our web based services. Either that, or get a browser that is more command driven. I have been intrigued by the Vivaldi browser project, started by the guys who made Opera, but that is still in early days.
How ironic. Though I am developing apps for modern web and touch based devices, I seem to be craving my tools be command driven, just like when I started on DOS based terminals back in 1985...