Comment by toolate | Hacker News Reader

Comment by toolate | Hacker News Reader

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While the tab behaviour is good, the close buttons are hopelessly small. They are a tiny 12px by 12px on Windows. Compare this to the close window buttons, which are 64px by 24px.

Compounding the error is the poor choice of middle-click as the alternative close mechanism. Many older mouses and most laptops don't have middle click. When browsing on my laptop I can't use the touchscreen to close a tab, as the hit area is much to small to accurately hit. Likewise, using the trackpad to land the pointer on the button is something I find difficult to do reliably.

I don't understand why the hit area can't be increased. There is little penalty for incorrectly closing a tab, as Chrome has a handy "Recently closed tabs" menu.

Edit: A search turned up the newer "Chrome Toolbox" plugin, which brings the missing double-click-to-close behaviour to Chrome tabs.

I disagree about middle-click being a "poor" method. Middle-clicking is essential to mouse-based browsing these days, both for opening links in a new tab and for closing tabs. With middle-click, the whole issue of close button placement becomes moot.

Any laptop that doesn't have a separate middle-click button (hint: made by a fruit company laptops) likely provides some multi-touch method for middle-clicking. I also haven't come across a mouse in quite some time that does not have a middle-click (I use a including an 8 year old microsoft mouse).

"Any laptop that doesn't have a separate middle-click button (hint: made by a fruit company laptops) likely provides some multi-touch method for middle-clicking."

Middle click is good because it is consistent with the open-in-new tab, however there really should be an option for devices without middle click. It's not just Apple devices. Neither my Toshiba or Acer laptops have middle click.

On Mac it's Cmd+click, on Windows maybe it's Ctrl+click?

Do most laptops come with middle click buttons? I can't remember ever seeing one that does, and I've used plenty of non-Apple laptops.

My own anecdotal observations suggest most laptops don't have a dedicated middle-click button, though most do emulate a middle click when the right and left buttons are simultaneously pressed.

Consider teaching yourself to use Ctrl/Cmd-W. Once you've done that and some of the other shortcuts (like Ctrl/Cmd-T to open a new tab, and Ctrl/Cmd+Shift-T to reopen a closed one), you'll rarely need a mouse for most websites.

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