GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 129643
Tab management should be standardized
Last modified: 2018-02-10 03:25:54 UTC
Every tabbed MDI application implements its own different tab management method. This is extremely confusing and unproductive for users. Also, applications should be able to assign icons to tabs. * We could add some icons/buttons to the tab area: 1. "New tab" button: When clicked should tell the application to create a new tab. The application can choose wether this button is available or not, because creating a tab manually is not applicable in every application (think of X-Chat for example). 2. "Close tab" button: When clicked, it should tell the application to close the currently displayed tab. This button should use the same shortcut key in every application (Ctrl+W?). 3. "Tab list" button: When clicked, it should display a popup menu listing the tabs currently open. This is exactly equal to the "Window Menu" applet of Gnome Panel. It is very important to have a standard shortcut key for this button in every MDI application (Alt+W?). This would improve the productiveness of MDI applications, since it would enable users to switch tabs using the keyboard (Alt+W, then arrow keys, then enter) without visiting every tab in the way to its destiny (ie. current Ctlr+PgUp/PgDn approach). Also, it is important that this popup menu, when invoked by the keyboard, should be displayed near the button and not near the mouse cursor (just like the gnome panel's Main Menu). For horizontal notebooks (ie. tabs on top or bottom), the format should be: [ New ] [ Tab ] [ Tab1 ] [ Tab2 ] [ Tab3 ] [ Close ] [ List ] And for Vertical notebooks, the format could be: [ New ] [ Close ] [ List ] [ Tab ] [ Tab ] [ Tab ] [ Tab ] The icon for "New" is a blank paper. The icon for "Close" is a "X". For "List", the icon can be a list with an arrow indicating that a menu will pop up. Of course, these icons would be themable by GTK themes. * A standard customizable context menu on the tabs would be great. It could have the Close action and some appplication-related actions. * Applications should be able to choose between a scrolled notebook and a multi-line notebook. * The notebook widget should limit the text in the tab's label automatically when the space is limited. Maybe we should make distinction between a simple notebook widget used in preference dialogs and the complex notebook widget used in MDI applications. Maybe the MDI apps can use a taskbar with buttons instead of tabs. Hmm.
The "New" button is really stupid. This stuff is always application related. About switching tabs with the keyboard: The current (Ctrl+PgUp/PgDn) approach: - Requires visiting each tab in the way between the current tab and the tab that you want to switch to - The state of the tabs in the way is lost (states as in bug 129643) - The application needs to render each tab in the way, which is slow The proposed approach ("Tab List" button): - Requires less keystrokes when you have more than 3 tabs - You can go directly to the tab you want - Is a standard approach (ie. standard icon, standard keybinding, etc) The two approaches could (should) be combined, because none of them is a complete solution.
*** Bug 573574 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
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