App for Grabs #2: Web Browser for Today's Desktop OSes

App for Grabs is a new series I'd like to start on "i" on Tech. It's basically an idea I have for an app (whether for mobile or desktop or web), but it seems no one has written that exact app just yet. So, I put this app idea up for grabs. Hence, the name. If you're a developer and you grab this app idea, please feel free to contact me for donations and royalties! :D  And I'd be happy to give you more app ideas. If you're evil and you don't even want to credit me, well, I will let the world judge you.

Anyhow, here's my second App for Grabs. More like new app features.

To accomplish certain tasks via the web, I need to visit a group of websites. To visit those websites, I need to click a link to each of them, say, via the Top Sites in Safari, or my Chrome Web Apps icons. If it were, say, 3 sites at a time, it would take me 5 clicks to launch all 3 sites, and this is assuming I have my browser properly set up already. If not, I'd probably have to add a few keystrokes to type the site URL into the address bar or omnibar. What if I have just a one-click access to these groups of websites? Well, technically, you can do that in Chrome already, but it ends there. Chrome simply opens  all of them in as little as 2 clicks -- right-click bookmarks folder, select "Open All Bookmarks…" -- but only as a shortcut for you. It's good, but I want my browser to recognise this set of websites as one work space. But then, I might have another set, and so on. And, I want each set to automatically launch on a specific desktop space on my Mac. And, I want access to my "web spaces" on the toolbar, not from the bookmarks bar or bookmarks menu. Speaking of bookmarks bars, I really dislike them on my 11.6" 16:9 aspect laptop. Actually, I dislike the toolbars and address bar there as well. That's my topic in the next paragraph. Now, if I spawn new tabs or windows from within those web spaces I mentioned, the browser recognises them and I have the option of either automatically including them with the space, or not. I should be able to access my spaces with a keyboard shortcut as well. Now, you might think, there's one other way to do this: launch multiple web browsers. HASSLE. Or, use multiple accounts on Chrome? No. Anyways, actually I'm looking more at you, Chrome. You can do it. Well, maybe an extension already does this for you, but I think this is simple enough that you can make it a feature of Chrome.

Second problem. So I have an 11.6" 16:9 aspect laptop. It's rather short, height-wise. But it's wide. Why aren't browsers taking advantage of this? Of course, there's Fluid, which is a customisable browser which turns specific websites of your liking into an app of its own. Plus, you can configure it to automatically launch this way:

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Notice how I don't have a toolbar, a status bar, and a window title bar. Unlike Safari: 

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But of course, Chrome already gets rid of the window title bar and status bar; a great innovation:

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You can see above, Safari is the worst because of the title bar. But if it had just one tab on, it has the same screen real estate, height-wise, as Chrome. Of course I can hide the toolbar in Safari, too, but the title bar is still there. Fluid also makes for the thinnest tabs, for less screen real estate, while Chrome is the worst in terms of tabs bar height. But Chrome does away with the status bar and it's still functional (it pops up only when needed). And of course, there's full screen mode to do this, but that doesn't solve it for me. Safari still retains the tabs bar and toolbar while in FS mode. Chrome doesn't default to a hidden tabs bar and toolbar when in FS mode (you have to go to "Presentation Mode" instead). And another problem I have with these two is, I expect them to start in FS mode when I exit them in FS mode. Why don't they!?

If you notice also from the three images above, there is a lot of white space. It's Blogger's design, of course, but no, we could get rid of these unnecessary white spaces, and see more of the contents. Like, so the tabs bar is always visible. That's a given. Why can't we just configure our browsers to have tabs, toolbars, bookmarks, and status bars on the side? You know, like on tablet apps? But in this case, because we have a wide screen. Imagine if the tabs and toolbars are on the left (with the full omnibar just popping up as you hover over). You see more of the webpage, and you see less of the white space. I think some browser has had this capability already, but Chrome and Safari, no. And they should probably. Now. Please!!!

UPDATE: Found one interim 50% solution for the 2nd issue above: I stay in non-FS mode on Safari, and get rid of the toolbar and status bar, and have just the right links on my Top Sites in Safari. More screen real estate now. I also have access to the new tabs button (the plus sign) if I want a mouse-only operation. Here's the problem though, if you have just one tab open:

Notice the redundancy? It's even more annoying when you have just one tabs. Oh boy.