Re: [Usability] Tab implementation review

[Kalle Vahlman <kalle vahlman gmail com>]

2009/2/12 Allan Day <allanpday gmail com>:
> On Thu, 2009-02-12 at 14:17 +0200, Kalle Vahlman wrote:
>> 2009/2/9 Allan Day <allanpday gmail com>:
>> > Hey all,
>> >
>> > I've been working (on and off) on reviewing all the bugs and other
>> > discussions on tabs in GNOME [1]. It's reached a fairly mature stage
>> > now. I think the review contains useful information about how tabs could
>> > be improved in GNOME. Any comments or suggestions?
>>
>> Not to encourage innovation or anything, but according to this study:
>>
>>   http://scienceblogs.com/cognitivedaily/2008/12/casual_fridays_whos_tabhappy_a.php
>>
>> most people have less than 7-8 tabs open when they browse the net (IMO
>> the number one tab use scenario really).
>>
>> And there's a simple reason for that; tabs just don't work when
>> there's too many of them (ie. more than what can be reasonably
>> accomodated by the window size).
>>
>> So rather than reinventing tabs and figuring out clever ways to make
>> tabs work, in my personal opinion the same effort would do much more
>> good in designing and implementing a better way to handle multiple
>> views (eg. improving window management or using a canvas approach)
>> than what tabs can offer...
>
> Thanks for the link - really useful. I'll add it to the tab review.
>
> I agree that, in an ideal world, we wouldn't have tabs and we'd just
> have really awesome window management instead. I'd also agree that
> improving window management is important, and I would hope that, in the
> future, window management gets so good that we don't need tabs any more.
>
> Whether we like it or not though, tabs are going to be around for a
> while, if for no other reason than them being something that users
> expect nowadays. My argument is that, if we're going to have tabs, we
> should make sure that they work well.

They do work well when the tab count is manageable. Eg. they work for
me with Gedit since I don't keep too many files open when I work.

> Likewise, evidence that most users don't have high numbers of tabs open
> shouldn't stop us from making sure that our tabbed interfaces work well
> when a user does have a lot of tabs open. The report you linked to says
> '16.7 percent of respondents said they had more than 10 tabs open.'
> Let's ensure that those 16.7% (the proportion with tabs flowing off the
> screen could be higher) have a positive experience using tabs.

I just don't belive tabs *can* be streched that far with worthwhile
results, and thus I think it would be wiser to direct effort to fix
the WM...

But as said, I don't want to generate stop energy too much so please
ignore me :)

-- 
Kalle Vahlman, zuh iki fi
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