Hi Dylan On Mon, May 17, 2010 at 17:21, Dylan McCall <dylanmcc...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Mon, May 17, 2010 at 7:05 AM, Tyler Brainerd <tylerbrain...@gmail.com> > wrote: > > Haha. I guess what I'm getting at is theres plenty of apps (like Empathy) > > that have tabs available, but they work on different rules. Not to > mention > > that some apps are on top, others on bottom, some are full featured tabs, > > some are content only and not tool bars and so have > > inconsistent appearance.... > > There is also some variety in what tabs feel like; what they mean, and > how they relate to windows. Lots of apps (Empathy, Firefox, gedit) > have tabs representing toplevel windows, to the extent they can be > dragged / dropped to expand into new toplevel windows. > > Reinteract is a neat alternative case. The application lets you do > math with Python and you get results in-line (plotting graphs, etc). > It has Notebooks, which contain Worksheets. Each notebook is > represented by a new window, and all the worksheets in a notebook > appear as separate tabs in its window. It makes no mention of tabs in > the surrounding chrome (there isn't a Tabs menu), and it is impossible > to drag a tab to create a new window. This isn't a problem of any sort > because they are a distinctly defined part of the user interface; they > represent something in a concrete way and they don't conflict with top > level windows. The tabs are just there. > > I think I have seen a few other apps like this, but Reinteract is the > one I remember. I think it is a nice example of tabs done right, > because it doesn't feel like they're just throwing tabs in for the > sake of it. > > Not that ”tabs are like windows, but inside of them” is inherently > tabs done wrong, but it _is_ a kludgey design as it is, and > inconsistent with how tabs are used elsewhere. Right now both designs, > even though they are completely different, go through the GTK Notebook > widget. Maybe that could be reconsidered. A new widget that > semantically and visually represents a separate document inside a > toplevel window may be worth exploring. > > I think becoming consistent with tabs will be difficult when we have > some applications (like Firefox) that treat tabs as features by > themselves that the user needs to think about directly; and other > applications (Reinteract, most configuration dialogs :/) where a tab - > as in, that exact same GTK widget - represents a section, or some > other unique and tactile thing where the important part is what it > represents, not the tab itself. > Being much of a layman, i can still follow most of what you formulate in here. This time i don't understand your point, for all the words you use to make it.. Dedicated GTK widget vs misused "Notes" widget sounds plausible to me, thanks. What's with tabs now? I see the discussion on how tabs can't be consistently cycled with [CTRL]+[TAB] in all apps.. But what do you mean exactly with your Reinteract example? Are you saying that e.g. Firefox should have a seperate, different sidebar for each tab that is open? Please apply your theory to how Firefox should rather handle tabs in your vision..
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