Re: Separate area at the top for a serious tab bar

[Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org>]

> Date: Mon, 25 Jun 2018 10:20:18 +0000 (UTC)
> From: "R. Diez" <rdiezmail-emacs@yahoo.de>
> Cc: "help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org" <help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org>,
> 	Jay Kamat <jaygkamat@gmail.com>
> 
> > Though I understand the "positional orientation" idea.
> 
> This is a personal preference. Many people thrive in chaos. Other must have a tidy desktop. There is nothing wrong per se with each way.
> 
> A tabbar does not preclude other buffer switching methods. I often have many buffers open. But I tend to keep the "local context" (the tabs that are visible right now) sorted (.h left from .cpp and so on).
> 
> There is a tabbar in Firefox. There is one in most desktop environments (Windows, Xfce, KDE...). There will always be people and scenarios where a tabbar is the right approach, even in Emacs.
> 
> I would not underestimate this kind of usability matter. It may well be one of the biggest factors driving people away from Emacs. It could even be a necessary evil until most people learn to do away with the tabbar. Humans are just like that.

FWIW, I consider tabbar to be in the same class as line numbers: while
not really an Emacs'y thing, at least not for us veteran curmudgeons,
they are very popular in some quarters, and if we want to make those
people happy, we should have them.

I also think this kind of feature needs support in the display engine;
anything else will always look like a hacky band-aid.  Volunteers are
welcome to work on that.