GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 75420
tab position setting?
Last modified: 2017-04-26 08:33:10 UTC
Package: gnome-terminal Severity: enhancement Version: 1.9.1 Synopsis: tab position setting? Bugzilla-Product: gnome-terminal Bugzilla-Component: general Description: now gnome-terminal seems to only top-tab. what about to give options, like other tab-based apps? ------- Bug moved to this database by unknown@bugzilla.gnome.org 2002-03-19 05:58 ------- Reassigning to the default owner of the component, hp@redhat.com.
I don't understand why you would want to configure this, really. Doesn't seem worth extra clutter in the Edit Profile dialog, there are 4 or 5 more important settings people have already asked for, and we don't have space for those even.
Ideally, if we really wanted this behavior/appearance to be a preference, it should be a globally-wide one set at the Gnome level. Right? The only argument to this would be that someone might prefer different tab positionings in different apps (say, side tabs in galeon but top tabs in gnome-terminal). Hard to say. Alternative solution: Make tab positionings configurable via drag-n-drop mechanisms (not in preferences dialog). Gnome-terminal stores the current position in a gconf key and defaults to this position in the future.
I like the global tab-position idea. Due to the fact that the tabs are gtk and gtk, by design, is not gConf aware, the programs themselves would have to check for this setting. If the tab-position was in GConf though, it would be an easy-fix for any app to check this value for tab configurations. I wonder what package a request like this should actually belong to.
I disagree. As Nate already said, there are preferences for each app. xchat(thou just gtk, not gnome, in example) is natural with bottom tab, I think. on the other hand, galeon is natural with top tab. if you ask why, I'll say you that those apps has entry for each reason and it's better to have tab closer to the entry, for less movement of hand and mouse pointer. which's best position for gnome-terminal, for less movement?
I just tried gnome-terminal after using gnome-multi-terminal for some time and I'd like to add my opinion. In a terminal one is usually typing at the bottom, might be a reason to put the tabs there too. MGT changes the color of the tab-text if something is changing in the tab (red) or if something has changed in the past (blue). I allways have a lot of tabs open, some with a logfile tailing, or with a compile running. I allways put MGT at the bottom of my screen, with the tabs at the bottom, this means I can allways see those tabs, even if I'm working in another program (with a non-fullscreen window) and I can see when something was added to one of those logs (tab turns red, then blue) or when a compile finishes (tab turns from red to blue) Even though GT doesn't change tab-color, I still prefer the tabs at the bottom ;)
*** Bug 111001 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Created attachment 38229 [details] [review] Add a gconf setting to specify where to locate the tab. With a tabbed terminal the user should be allowed to decide where to display the tabs (top/bottom). This patch realizes selection of tab position via gconf to save space in the gui itself.
Created attachment 38232 [details] [review] fixed patch to schema.in from last patch Forgot the list_type in the schema.
Created attachment 57029 [details] [review] fixed a crash, use string type in gconf, rediff against current gnome cvs This is still a gconf only solution, no gui elements are added.
I still believe the tabs should be at the bottom of the screen. I don't think this should be configured globaly at a gnome level. The terminal is a special application, no other app has to deal with this much textflow. And I don't think any other gnome app has a non-fixed point of text input ... It's been over 4 years now. Can someone explain why this bug is ignored?
About the patch: a) this only looks at the gconf key when creating new windows, while for consistency one should probably have gconfd notify g-t of changes and update existing windows when needed; b) note that gconf_client_get-string returns a newly allocated string, so you have to free at the right time it to avoid a leak; probably making tab_position be of type GtkPositionType and handling the string only in the gconf notification listener would be the simplest. No other app in the desktop allows you to configure where tabs are put. While it is true that the terminal is somewhat special, Havoc's question as to why would you configure this still stands. What problem is this intended to solve? The argument about pointer movement economy in comment #4 does not appeal to me much, as one does not really use the pointer much inside the terminal. Indeed, ‘pointer action’ in a g-t window happens mostly on the menubar, the wm-provided buttons and title, and---currently---the tabs, all of which are (for the usual wms, at least) conveniently at the top.
(In reply to comment #11) > No other app in the desktop allows you to configure where tabs are put. While > it is true that the terminal is somewhat special, Havoc's question as to why > would you configure this still stands. What problem is this intended to solve? See bug #85504 and the linked mail ling list discussion there on rationales for mdi-style apps like terminal emulators, irc clients, web browsers, text editors, spreadsheet... . There are some. For terminal like things like gnome-terminal, xchat its even more obvious as all the action is at the bottom.
Created attachment 75134 [details] [review] updated patch against gnome-terminal 2.16.1 Thanks for the feedback, this should fix the problems.
I read the discussion about tab positioning and i would like to add the following: 1. I use tabbed terminals for some years, i'm used to have the tabs at the bottom. Which, in my opinion, is the default behaviour for a tabbed terminal. 2. Tabs at the top duplicate information, like current path, which is also in the title bar. 3. Bottom tabs really look great in fullscreen mode. 4. The tabs in g-t are more like multiple tasks, i like to have the tabs near the window list. 5. Most applications which run in the terminal display their status at the bottom, too. Like vim, irssi, screen and mutt. (yes, they are not dead yet) I understand that this bug is no issue for many users, but it is my impression that a lot of users who spent most of their time in the terminal, on remote machines or programming, would benefit from some choice.
I would remove the ‘left’ and ‘right’ options, which currently do not do anything useful (one *could* change the hboxes in the tab labels to vboxes, and make the label render vertically, etc, so that having the tabs in those positions lets you read the tab titles, but there is really no gain in having tabs put on the sides apart from the coolness factor) Also, passing NULL as the GError** argument to gconf_client_get_string should really be replaced by checking as is done with CONF_GLOBAL_PREFIX"/use_mnemonics". Finally, try to use the coding style from the surrounding code...
Created attachment 75641 [details] [review] coding style and cleanup Thanks for the feedback. Here is an updated patch.
Any news on this? The bug is open quite a while now ;-) Just an additional voice for having the tabs on the bottom, which seems obvious to me, because that's the place where I'm looking all the time while hacking in the terminal.
The patch needs to be updated to svn trunk.
This bug has been open for 6 years already and the rationale for having tabs at the bottom by default has been explained many times. What's taking so long?
Created attachment 119862 [details] [review] Updated patch against SVN 3119 This patch needed updating, and so it has been done. Can we finally get this bug behind us? 6 years seems like enough.
The gconf stuff should live in terminal-app, not in terminal-window. The window should simply get the setting from the app. Also you need to listen for notifications when the setting changes.
Created attachment 120270 [details] [review] patch More like this.
I think eventually it should be possible to middle-drag any GTK+ tab bar and move it to any side you want, and it should remember them. Also should be able to set on a per-app/widget basis using gtkrc.
I agree with Behdad. It could be solved by dragging and dropping. No preferences. I think this is a very important thing, why cannot a user change the place of the tabs? He can change the place of the panels, but not this.
ChPe, are you planning to get this in? I'm getting multiple requests for this (and I know I'll use it myself).
We're past feature freeze for 2.28, so this can only go into 2.29 at the earliest. I was waiting for someone doing the work on making this a global, gnome-wide setting for MDI apps, as per the discussion above. For just implementing a new g-t pref, the latest patch is fine and ready to go. But it doesn't work if we want also a gtkrc setting (style property). The issue of changing the setting by DND (comment 24) should be split off into a new bug later (only after the setting exists, not now).
I still don't believe in a gnome-wide setting. I don't want to sacrifice top tabs, for example in gedit, just for the terminal. Missing another gnome freeze makes me realize how much I got used to top tabs in the last four years...
We're now in 2013, my Ubuntu 13.04 ships with gnome-terminal 3.6.1... and the tabs are still at the top forcing me to install a lot of kde stuff to use konsole. I don't understand why this feature has not been added. The motivation has been exposed many times in this issue. Waiting for some global configuration option is not a valuable argument to wait: if such a global option comes one day, then it will be time to adapt gnome-terminal to use it but in the mean time (more than 10 years now!) gnomre-terminal should have its custom configuration option (or default, I don't care). Please don't wait another decade to add this feature.
ChPe added such a hidden option to gnome-terminal 3.16. Go to dconf-editor -> org.gnome.terminal.legacy -> tab-position.
Is dconf-editor something that is present in all distributions that come with gnome-terminal. I think no. So, this bug should remain open IMHO.
I think it is. If not, you should complain at your distribution, or use the command line dconf tool. It's a hidden setting and I think it's okay this way, very few people use this option and it goes against all modern UIs. Basically you're questioning the concept of hidden prefs per se, which is used in gnome-terminal for other purposes as well and in plenty of other GNOME apps. If you don't agree with this concept, it should be brought up on some global GNOME mailing list or so, and a project-wide decision should be made. If hidden prefs are okay (I think they are) then this feature request is addressed.