From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: main.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Alex Schroeder Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: tabs proposal Date: Wed, 19 Nov 2003 22:43:32 +0100 Sender: emacs-devel-bounces+emacs-devel=quimby.gnus.org@gnu.org Message-ID: <87ptfodofv.fsf_-_@emacswiki.org> References: <87oevag25a.fsf@emptyhost.emptydomain.de> NNTP-Posting-Host: deer.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Trace: sea.gmane.org 1069278541 17795 80.91.224.253 (19 Nov 2003 21:49:01 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@sea.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 19 Nov 2003 21:49:01 +0000 (UTC) Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+emacs-devel=quimby.gnus.org@gnu.org Wed Nov 19 22:48:58 2003 Return-path: Original-Received: from quimby.gnus.org ([80.91.224.244]) by deer.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 3.35 #1 (Debian)) id 1AMaC2-0007Re-00 for ; Wed, 19 Nov 2003 22:48:58 +0100 Original-Received: from monty-python.gnu.org ([199.232.76.173]) by quimby.gnus.org with esmtp (Exim 3.35 #1 (Debian)) id 1AMaC2-0001zt-00 for ; Wed, 19 Nov 2003 22:48:58 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1] helo=monty-python.gnu.org) by monty-python.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.24) id 1AMb7S-0003J8-AK for emacs-devel@quimby.gnus.org; Wed, 19 Nov 2003 17:48:18 -0500 Original-Received: from list by monty-python.gnu.org with tmda-scanned (Exim 4.24) id 1AMb5L-0002bC-BS for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Wed, 19 Nov 2003 17:46:07 -0500 Original-Received: from mail by monty-python.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.24) id 1AMb4M-000256-99 for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Wed, 19 Nov 2003 17:45:37 -0500 Original-Received: from [62.2.95.247] (helo=smtp.hispeed.ch) by monty-python.gnu.org with esmtp (TLSv1:DES-CBC3-SHA:168) (Exim 4.24) id 1AMb4K-00022G-EQ for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Wed, 19 Nov 2003 17:45:04 -0500 Original-Received: from confusibombus.emacswiki.org (dclient217-162-143-43.hispeed.ch [217.162.143.43]) by smtp.hispeed.ch (8.12.6/8.12.6/tornado-1.0) with ESMTP id hAJLhWEU030148 for ; Wed, 19 Nov 2003 22:43:33 +0100 Original-To: emacs-devel@gnu.org Face: iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAADAAAAAwCAYAAABXAvmHAAACkElEQVR42s1a0bLsIAgzjv// y7kPd9pVKxKVdk6fzux2C4EAwR6QZBpcQEopIf3Fq3a52Lfh0Mjjk99zcWYBwA2ihEen9jVxfAf/ u0+Y2HQwNoVw4Dx34trRV6NSjiLPmfPt77jwiBxB/3PnZ3B2AGxzHnGu0wcBwAIAyQwZGvQhiFcy YLOFQcSB/MS82n3ec37vykNqRFTX9rVWR2U5+pZNIggll0CUOQN9BDdm1LfBmcZxIEqjL6r2JU/D galaB7Zg4jlY2ulnIx9OR4iMRl38CAFyKaA8jAxE7lNn650VKMULZ/54crqn0YQCJGQliebXkFIK hwqmGm28cgsSjz/hzRCMneQEwMjVoH3gWTtMPgIslJUV5uIluvUEkyzU+gUGQO62e9NuSdZCzNOM fDPC87iCqfE9gHinsIrSL16TPBfrYIeHzqKU90a50jCh54EcrgAUFo5ibzvebgr/I66USQ0CspQp IVSoBQK3WswDDIndIraHxoglqOjM1d044PQvu1NY0EHtqQR/XwJ+PeCs0x2dSlApZVw4MPER23PD 7JekoHxrqTRod/2Gx5nhx5dfAJhqPt7tDMIZxNN/7lOIaparPn7ZQ88drlORC2eLWXowxIq4gHTh VN1BSmsHoxYAbPWDTuGQuuecS+aYQUYpfr0YqPQOuuUk5tApK077+2xfOYP+XyWEIwPcE49lvT9N y2+wU2KylGGp4yxlALcm6fSlmgk62yfSsfNunDl5d6W91MBUoZw679YAJoMMkhijuXdFOL+khaL2 s+g3zy4APQuQvSc/BNAYnkl6E8ivYtEHJXa1dihE3zgnKMdNgN8DiIwgA17NykUMvFDQ+LALvXXI BuBLAHv/DvBmc/0HzR03PqXmLcQAAAAASUVORK5CYII= In-Reply-To: (Richard Stallman's message of "Tue, 18 Nov 2003 18:03:58 -0500") User-Agent: Gnus/5.1003 (Gnus v5.10.3) Emacs/21.3.50 (gnu/linux) X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.2 Precedence: list List-Id: Emacs development discussions. List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: emacs-devel-bounces+emacs-devel=quimby.gnus.org@gnu.org Xref: main.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:17930 X-Report-Spam: http://spam.gmane.org/gmane.emacs.devel:17930 Richard Stallman writes: > Whether these two partial solutions are enough for real usage, I > can't guess in advance. I know people who do work with a gazillion tabs in several rows where the name of the buffers or files just can't be read. My observation was that these people usually use tabs when there are few files and buffers, and just ignore them when there are many. When there are many, they resort to other means of switching buffers or files. An example is "tabbed browsing" in browser such as Firebird. As soon as I have five pages open at the same time, tabs stop being useful per se. So how come I sometimes have 20 tabs open? I read a page, and follow three links by opening them in new tabs. Now I have four tabs open, the system is still usable. Then I switch to tab number two and find five interesting pages. I open them all in new tabs. And from then on the list of tabs is just a visual indication of how big my "reading stack" is. I just keep adding to the stack by opening new pages in new tabs at the back, and killing tabs after I read them at the front. With this description on a narrative level, we can design a different interface -- there only a max. of five tabs available. When the user creaates a new tab, we can add it to the end of the list, and show at the end of the tab bar we have a tab counter for the hidden tabs saying "1 more" (and keep increasing this as things are added). Or if the new tab is created due to some automatic buffer creation (eg. Help, Apropos, etc), then we put it right after the current tab. If we already have five tabs, the last one is removed and the tab counter is increased. If the current tab is tab number five, then the new buffer would have to be invisiible. Instead, we rotate the stack. The first tab is moved to the end. Now the current tab is number four, and the new buffer is in tab number five. It makes sense to allow "limitting" tabs to buffers by mode, age, size, etc. -- all the stuff ibuffer does, too. The key point is that we don't show more than a small number of tabs at the same time. Only the first n elements of the (possibly filtered) buffer-list are shown. Whenever this is not enough, we change the order of the buffer-list such that the list of tabs shown remains meaningful. Alex. -- http://www.emacswiki.org/alex/ There is no substitute for experience.