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Bug 416110 - Tabs in GNOME
Tabs in GNOME
Status: RESOLVED FIXED
Product: gnome-devel-docs
Classification: Applications
Component: hig
unspecified
Other All
: Normal minor
: ---
Assigned To: Calum Benson
Calum Benson
uipattern
Depends on:
Blocks:
 
 
Reported: 2007-03-08 16:17 UTC by Thilo
Modified: 2020-12-04 18:20 UTC
See Also:
GNOME target: ---
GNOME version: ---


Attachments
CTRL+N to CTRL+T Shortcut Change (872 bytes, patch)
2009-09-03 17:27 UTC, Michael Koehler
none Details | Review
Use both ctrl-t and ctrl-n as shortkey combination (929 bytes, patch)
2009-11-25 18:32 UTC, Nikos Verschore
none Details | Review

Description Thilo 2007-03-08 16:17:28 UTC
I have found that opening a new tab is often different:

* Epiphany: Ctrl+T
* Gedit: Ctrl+N (new document)
* Gnome-Terminal: SHIFT+Ctrl+T

I think this is really bad. I can understand we have different history but I really think this is the same action and so should have the same keyboard shortcut. What do you think? Maybe we even have more shortcuts for new tabs in GNOME?



Other information:
as talked about in usability list.
Comment 1 Calum Benson 2007-03-15 17:43:20 UTC
See also bug #87764.

I think the lack of HIG advice here was originally down to our hope for the arrival of a tabbed window manager that would prevent applications having to implement their own tabs.  However, that's obviously not going to happen anytime soon, and tabbed applications aren't going to go away either, so we probably do need to come up with something here.
Comment 2 Michael Koehler 2009-09-03 17:27:03 UTC
Created attachment 142426 [details] [review]
CTRL+N to CTRL+T Shortcut Change

Hey guys - this has also been talked about downstream (LP #301942) so I made a quick patch to change the 'new' shortcut to CTRL+T.  I have attached the debdiff to this post.
Comment 3 Travis Watkins 2009-09-16 20:56:57 UTC
gnome-terminal cannot use Ctrl-T to open a new terminal tab because Ctrl-T is used by the terminal itself. It's the same thing as Tab not working in a text area because Tab is used in the text area itself so you have to use Ctrl-Tab to move focus.
Comment 4 Nikos Verschore 2009-11-25 18:32:38 UTC
Created attachment 148469 [details] [review]
Use both ctrl-t and ctrl-n as shortkey combination

I think both ctrl-t and ctrl-n should be a short key combination. Ctrl-t for all people thinking in tabs metaphors and ctrl-n for all people thinking in document metaphors.
Comment 5 Azenketh 2010-02-26 07:08:25 UTC
In Gedit it breaks a plugin for indentation. What would be the benefits and downfalls of changing that hotkey?

If we leave it how it is we do not have to retrain people using the indent plugin. And people can figure out what the hotkey is by looking at the file menu. 

However if we change it how would we communicate to the users of the plugin that there plug-in no longer works.  

If we want to implement this I say we would need to check to see if the plugin Indent Lines is enabled.
Comment 6 Tobias Wolf 2010-03-02 14:07:01 UTC
Ctrl-N stands for »New Document«. There is no need to change it.
Comment 7 Bartosz 2010-10-26 12:03:55 UTC
Here is short summary of the following problem:
http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/idea/17763/
Comment 8 Calum Benson 2011-05-03 16:56:47 UTC
Tagging this as something we need to look at for the GNOME 3.x HIG/pattern library.
Comment 9 Bartosz 2011-05-03 17:38:00 UTC
Tab shortcuts comparison for different graphic systems:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Table_of_keyboard_shortcuts#Tab_management
Comment 10 Chris Wilson 2011-12-14 18:37:46 UTC
Hey, I was wondering if a decision had been made on this issue.There seems to be a patch attached to this bug report. Has anyone had a look at it yet?
Comment 11 Allan Day 2014-09-26 12:53:08 UTC
I've added some details on standard keyboard shortcuts for tabs. There's maybe more to add, but this is a start.

https://git.gnome.org/browse/gnome-devel-docs/commit/?id=be297f3decbcd63228fac0bb43cdb81fec3c1909