Firefox and SmartFTP show how to make tabbed MDI fit in with Windows XP.

Bugs

IE7 tabs don’t look like XP tabs:

• They are too tall.
• They are too wide.
• They do not shrink to fit their content.
• They do not inherit the XP Theme’s tab colours.
• They apply a coloured gradient instead of using the XP Theme’s styling (usually a solid colour).

Compare them to some property sheets and some Options windows.

Ideas

• Tabs are straight where their outer edge joins the thing they contain (unlike Firefox).
• Tabs have no divider line between thing they contain (unlike Firefox).
• Web page toolbar goes outside the tab area (unlike Opera).
• Plugin toolbars may appear inside the tab area (already does this).
• Tab bar should be standard tab bar height (unlike Opera).
• Tab height should change by the conventional amount for that state (unlike Firefox for TIS_SELECTED).
• Continue ignoring TABP_BODY because it would make unstyled pages harder to read?
• Always use normal weight text (unlike Firefox).
• Always use normal text colours (unlike Opera).
• Remove tab bar scrolling. Multiple tab rows are favoured in XP.
• Connect tabs directly to the viewport.
• The common XP tab control supports much of this natively.