IE Quick Pick UI, a New Tabbed Navigation Mechanism

Microsoft is cooking up some rather interesting concepts for the evolution of the Internet Explorer graphical user interface. Case in point: a patent that the Redmond company filed for, describing a “system and method for selecting a tab within a tabbed browser.” Dubbed Quick Pick, the new UI will essentially deliver streamlined navigation to Internet Explorer users that have multiple tabs opened simultaneously in the same browser instance. Of course, just because Microsoft filed a patent application doesn’t mean that the actual technology will be developed, or integrated into IE. But it would sure be nice for the software giant to simplify the navigation of multiple tabs in Internet Explorer 9, Quick Pick or no Quick Pick. (via GoRumors -  it appears the news was first published by BeingManan)

“Browsing software is configured to provide a quick pick user-interface that visually displays the content of the several tabs, such as a by displaying a thumbnail for each tab. The thumbnails allow a user to easily distinguish between each opened tab. The browsing software may also be configured to recognize a user selection from within the quick pick user-interface and in response, switch back to a tabbed window view and display the selected tab in that view. The browsing software may adjust the tab row so that the selected tab is positioned in a favorable position within the tab row. In addition, within the quick pick user-interface, the user may reposition the thumbnails and/or close the thumbnails, thus affecting the associated tab in the tab row,” the company’s description of Quick Pick reads.

Microsoft is looking to integrate in the browser’s interface a Quick Pick button whose functionality would be correlated with a hot-key. The Quick Pick UI will be designed to highlight thumbnails of opened tabs, and will allow the user to get additional info, including a larger representation of a tab by hovering the mouse over a certain item.

The new navigation mechanism refers to “tabbed browser window displaying a plurality of open tabs in a tab band, each open tab having a separate content window with web page content associated therewith, wherein the plurality of open tabs includes a currently selected tab and one or more non-selected tabs; displaying a quick pick window as a content window for a tab on the display in response to receipt of a user activation of a quick pick mechanism, wherein the user activation of the quick pick mechanism comprises a selection of a quick pick button in the tab band,” Microsoft adds.

Thanks for the heads-up Anand!