Re: [Usability] tabs in GNOME

[Alan Horkan <horkana maths tcd ie>]

On Wed, 7 Mar 2007, Thorsten Wilms wrote:

> Date: Wed, 7 Mar 2007 21:49:38 +0100
> From: Thorsten Wilms <t_w_ freenet de>
> To: usability gnome org
> Subject: Re: [Usability] tabs in GNOME
>
> On Wed, Mar 07, 2007 at 09:37:39PM +0100, Thilo Pfennig wrote:
>
> > I have found that opening a new tab is often different:
> >
> > * Epiphany: Ctrl+T
> > * Gedit: Ctrl+N (new document)
> > * Gnome-Terminal: SHIFT+Ctrl+T

This came up a while back ... I'd look it up but I'm bit stressed at the
moment.  There were various reasons for doing each of those and justified
as they may the end result is the inconsistency you see.

> > I think this is really bad.

Enforcing consistency has long been a problem in Gnome, it is amazing we
do so well.  (GTK hackers have a huge power to make consistency easier for
developers so that it will be the path of least resistance.  I can only
encourage those brave souls who work deep underground to support Gnome.)

> > shortcut. What do you think? Maybe we even have more shortcuts for new tabs
> > in GNOME?

Written sarcasm can be dangerous.

> But for Gedit the action is New document, Ctrl-N being standard for it.
> One could argue that opening a tab is just a side efect.

If I liked tabs I think I might put in a request so that Ctrl+T would open
a Tab in Gedit too, even if the default visible shortcut remains Ctrl+N.

I'm not sure how the New MDI branch of Gedit has progressed but I do hope
it will be possible to have Gedit behave like a simple SDI application at
some point.  When that becomes possible it will make sense for Gedit to
behave more like Mozilla and Epiphany so that Ctrl+N will open a new
window and Ctrl+T will open a new Tab (and I wouldn't be surprised if
there was a setting such to force Ctrl+N to always open tabs, just as
mozilla has such a hidden setting).  The Gedit developers have long been
aware that some of their users have quite different and even opposing
habits and I sincerely believe they want to accomodate people as best they
can but without allowing things to get too messy.

I believe a quick bug report or post to the gedit list pointing out this
discussion would give us more information about their plans and I'm
optimistic this inconsistency can be correct sooner or later.

> For the Terminal: I don't even know what might be bound to Ctrl-T,
> but it would be problematic to ignore console key bindings.

Those of you who occasionally use Windows may be familiar with a Secure
Shell program called Putty.  It includes a few options to allow
extra keybindings, and maybe the terminal could have an option to use
Ctrl+T for new tab that users could force if they really wanted but again
we get into the nasty territory of too many options for too few users.

> Well, all those shell tools could benefit from a usability workover
> ... flying pigs and all that :)

Doesn't everyone use xterm?

It may sound like heresy to the Unix traditionalists but to me the
Graphical Desktop and Command Line are two different worlds.  There are
times when they can work in tandem, but I believe there are times when
there will be an unavoidable schism.  I prefer to think of the command
line as an optional extra that no Desktop user should ever feel forced to
use.  That is a discussion that could go on and on for a very long time
but the short answer is command line users will have to put up with many
inconsistencies and I cannot help but feel it is an unavoidable
inconsistency it is best to accept in this case.

-- 
Alan