So, I'm in the middle of documenting one gripe when another one arises! Sheesh, what a day!

Have you ever had a pop-up window open in Firefox that lacks certain UI features like a menu bar, tool bar, tabs, etc.? Pebble pops up such a window when you want to create a blog entry.

Well, when a second program pops up a new tabbed window into that undecorated window, you've got problems. I was creating my previous blog entry, went to look up a word ("unusability") in the Google Desktop Search toolbar, and it popped the search results into a new tab in the same tabless window where my blog entry sat half-written. So, there I was, staring at the Google results when I wanted to get back to my blog entry. I had no controls to change tabs. No menu. Nothing helpful on the right-click menu, either! No gadgets, no widgets, no what-zits.

Must I once again use the questionable word, unusability? Must I again invoke Jakob Nielsen? Must I again profess my disdain for all things software? Must I remind you of the reasons for the name of my blog?

When you're faced with a window showing you no controls, and you know your work is hidden back there somewhere, and you don't know that any of the myriad possible keystrokes is going to help you, well, there's reason to be cranky.

After a lot of frantic keyboard pounding, I stumbled on the magic key sequence. You can switch "tabs" with a Ctrl-PgUp or Ctrl-PgDn, even if they're hidden.

The good news is that I didn't lose my work. (You're all just freakin' lucky, that's all I can say.) And, yes, switching tab windows with Ctrl-PageUp and Ctrl-PageDown is kind of handy, even when the tabs are visible. But, does it have to be so painful?

Why must software hurt? *sniff sniff*