Created attachment 116856 [details] [review]
Patch to change behaviour

Attached a patch to tweak the behaviour to match others

FWIW I tested this patch and there is something I don't like: all tabs don't have the same width, like in gedit, but unlike Epiphany or gnome-terminal.

Well, let's hear what Xavier and others have to tell.  Perhaps the usability team could also be copied...

I'm really unsure about this bug, I don't like tabs of different size. Pidgin also use the full space for chat tabs.

As this is a UI change and GNOME is in freeze, I can't accept it until 2.25.x anyway.


I added usability team in CC

Another argument against the patch is MSN contacts often have long aliases, so you can see only the first tab and you are forced to scroll to see other tabs.

I think there is no consitency for tabs across applications:
1) epiphany, firefox and nautilus have a fixed size for tabs;
2) gnome-terminal and pidgin use the full width as does empathy;
3) gedit uses variable size depending on the name of the edited file;
4) gajim uses variable size with a Max width per tab.

As I understand your patch, you did proposition 3 which is the less common case.

I reject the patch and close the bug because there is no good reason the change it. However there is obviously something inconcistent in the GNOME desktop so I suggest you to discuss this issue with the GNOME community so we can to the same thing in all applications.

Thanks.

Reopening this bug as I think this issue need a little bit further discussion

If you reopen please at least paste a link to a discussion where the GNOME community agreed on something.

I see no ongoing discussion... Please reopen the bug if there is something we can actually change in Empathy. Atm there is no consensus and no discussion at all on GNOME mailing lists.

For the record: http://mail.gnome.org/archives/usability/2009-January/msg00013.html

Please, make tab width fits contact name, as it was in Ubuntu 8.10, the whole-window-tab-width looks ugly.

I agree with Xavier here. This is a matter of taste; even if we can't please everybody with the choice, we should strive to be consistent in that choice. We shouldn't unilaterally change this in Empathy; this is a discussion that needs to happen more broadly.

gnome-terminal's tabs are the ugliest I've ever seen. I have no idea what fool made them in such a way, but actually, most tabbed apps looks like Ubuntu 8.10' Empathy, not your upstream monster.

Denis, please stop with "ugly", "fool", "monster" words, this is not useful discussion.

But do you agree Ubuntu's variant looks like (not identically, but quite similar) most other tabbed gnome apps (Nautilus, Epiphany, Gedit)? The only exception is gnome-terminal (Pidgin is not a good example, this is not a gnome application). So we have now:
1) Gnome has no general look of tabbed apps, but the widest is not similar to your upstream, whereas Ubuntu's is.
2) Tabbed applications on other platforms has tabs like Nautilus, not Pidgin/Gnome-terminal one. I don't think they are idiots not to follow gnome-terminal style if it would be really better than their one.
3) In my opinion, gnome-terminal/Pidgin tab appearance looks more like a bug, than a well turned feature.
4) Remember 2006 year. Gnome taskbar applet entry appearance was the same as your tab appearance, I mean one entry could expand to fill a whole applet, which most people supposed to be a bug, not a feature.

So my idea is clear, current upstream appearance is a bug.

I meant "widest spread" in #1.

Denis, there is no need to continue speaking on a closed bug. Please explain your point in the GNOME mailing list linked by Laurent in comment #8.

Thanks.