Re: Notebooks [Was: Re: Installation-time...]

[Maciej Stachowiak <mjs noisehavoc org>]

On 29Aug2001 10:21PM (+0200), Reinout van Schouwen wrote:
> 
> I feel urged to point out how the Notebook widget in OS/2 Warp 4 
> approaches the many-tabs-problem. Perhaps it has its weaknesses but I 
> feel it's certainly elegant, and some ideas could be borrowed.
> 
> Anyway, the deal is this:
> 
> * There is only one row of tabs, that are visually distinguised not only 
> by form but also by color.

In the image you cite, the colors seem a bit distracting from the rest
of the dialog.

> If the number of tabs is larger than the 
> available screen space, a small tab with an arrow pointing left and one 
> with an arrow pointing right is placed on the corresponding ends of the 
> visible tab row.

The problem with this is that you can't see all the choices at
once. This makes it more awkward to scan over the available options,
and has the same problem that Joel was originally complaining about in
the old Mac control panel, namely that users might never find the
choices they don't see on the screen right away.

> * you can have multiple sub-pages per tab. This is indicated by a small 
> indicator 'Page 1/3' on the top right corner of the tab page. Clicking 
> on an arrow as mentioned above will first take you to the next subpage, 
> if the last subpage has been reached it will take you to the next tab.

That doesn't sound so good to me. The tabs have meaningful titles, but
the pages are just arbitrarily numbered. How is the user supposed to
know which page a setting is on? It seems like you have to flip
through all the pages. To me, this is like having a second row of tabs
which is labeled "Page 1", "Page 2", "Page 3", etc - breakdown by
programmer convenience rather than any kind of logic that is clear to
the user.

> * A vertical list of all available tabs can be obtained by 
> right-clicking anywhere on the row of tabs. A pop-up menu with all tab 
> names will appear. Sub-pages are handled in a one level deep submenu. 
> Personally, I think this (great) feature should be made a bit more 
> visually obvious. But this illustrates once more that in the Workplace 
> Shell, the right mouse button actually has a function...!

This seems like a nice feature, although it would be nicer if it were
not necessary in the first place.

 - Maciej