Re: Gtk tabs in emacs, new branch.

["René Kyllingstad" <listmailemacs@kyllingstad.com>]

On Sat, Apr 10, 2010 at 5:19 PM, Stefan Monnier
<monnier@iro.umontreal.ca> wrote:
>> Are there any concrete examples of other uses?
>
> I can imagine switching the buffer of one of the windows (in an ECB-style
> frame, for example).

Let's call that window the editor window.  This means having the tabs as
part of the frame instead of as part of the editor window.  The appeal is
clear: it affords more space for the tabs for an ECB-style frame.

However, it breaks the expectation that the tab changes the display of the
attached pane.

Eclipse provides a ECB style frame, but uses tabs-per-pane rather than tabs
at the frame level. This allows one to later add tabs to the individual
windows in ECB, and it makes the interface consistent wrt tabs.

In Eclipse this is put to good use, most of the ECB-style windows have tabs
on them.  It would be great if an Eclipse-like setup could be achieved in
Emacs.  This would mean:

  - a window-set-tabs function taking a list of (icon, text, tooltip, buffer).
    clicking on the tab displays the buffer.

That would take care of the non-editor windows. There are other features
needed (other-window shouldn't switch to the non-editor windows,
switch-buffer shouldn't suggest the buffers in the non-editor windows,
persistence of window configurations), but it would be useful by itself.

For the editor windows another mechanism is needed to create the tabs, as
the list of tabs should be some subset of the open buffers.

A related item: many Eclipse panes have tool-bars as well as tabs.  If
there is space for both the list of open tabs and the tool-bar on one line,
they are displayed with the tabs to the left, tool-bar buttons to the
right, otherwise they are broken up into two lines with the tabs above the
tool-bar.  The tool-bar is related to the current tab (displayed
buffer), so switching
tabs may remove the tool-bar or change its content.


-- René