Re: Shelling Epiphany | The problems of shell-level tabs

[Alexandre Mazari <scaroo gmail com>]

Hi Filip,

Thanks for your feedback.

Le dimanche 20 mars 2011 à 18:51 +0100, Filip Štědronský a écrit :
> > I think it's a really interesting idea, similar windows could be
> > grouped and 'tabbed' and the tabs themselves could be implemented
> > directly inside the window titlebar. If done correctly, it would save
> > every app ever from having to reimplement tabs over and over and over.
> > It sounds to me like an opportunity to increase the overall quality of
> > the tabbing experience in all apps at once.
> 
> However, doing so would mean a great loss of the flexibility
> tabs originally brought over windows. The fact that the app
> can make them suit its needs.

I am not sure this is the common case as you state bellow.

> Browsers can show loading progress
> bar in the tabs or whatever. Or they could implement them in 
> a completely different way. 

The proposed idea is only regarding epiphany, other browsers could (and will)
continue to use tabs and doesnt/should impose tabs removal. Or maybe if the HIG 
team fully embrace the idea, who knows ? :)

> 
> I for example use the Tree Style Tab extension (which puts the
> tabs in an indented tree-like layout on the left) in Firefox to
> keep track of the ~200 open tabs. It's much more easy to orient
> in and on wide screens there is a lot more space on the side 
> than there is at the top (and most website never use the full
> width anyway). 

Yet another activity switching paradigm. You have nice brain muscles :)
Again, firefox is not concerned by this discussion. And the proposition
regarding Web Apps integration could shrink the need for such extension.
The page hierarchy would be known by the shell, as related tabs would
be own by a specific application (all bugzilla tabs in a Bugzilla application). 

>I use normal tabs in other programs (Nautilus,
> Terminal), as I never have so many open in those.

> 
> Using system-level tabs would make such efforts quite hard or 
> at least inconsistent (because to make tabs look/behave 
> different(ly), you would have to switch to a completely 
> different system of handling them (wm tabs->gtk tabs)).

The tree you describe is already a different way of handling opened
page that standards tabs.

> 
> Not to mention "global" widgets that don't belong to any tab and
> should be visible outside the tab area.
> 
> Filip Štědronský
>