Re: Tabs

[Juri Linkov <juri@linkov.net>]

>> So now I implemented support for nox builds as well, and pushed
>> to the branch.  Please try to recompile.
>
> Done. It builds; tested on WSL. A few considerations.

Thanks for testing and considerations for improvement.

> Usually, when I start nox Emacs it loads the last buffer I worked on
> previously because I have '(desktop-save-mode 1)'. Call this buffer
> foo.txt. The same occurs with your branch. So I do 'M-x
> global-tab-line-mode' and foo.txt is in a tab, and near the tab a '+'.
>
> So, I don't see the other buffers saved in desktop.
>
> When I click with mouse the '+' a menu shows up whose items are just those
> buffers! I can select another buffer in this menu only with UP/DOWN
> keyboard key and NOT with the mouse: someone of you should ad this and also
> to work with File Edit Options... menu and their items (now one has to do
> F10 and move with arrows...)

Indeed F10 doesn't allow selecting menu items with the mouse, neither
<C-down-mouse-1> ('mouse-buffer-menu') on which the '+' is based.
I don't know whether it's possible to implement mouse support
for these menus.

> In this way, I can have other desktop saved buffers in tabs.. but
> quitting Emacs, the next time I have to repeat all those
> steps... which is annoying.

Actually after restoring the desktop, all previous buffers
will appear in tabs if you use the same window.

So currently it works in that way that allows you to select
which buffers you want to see in the tab-line of the current window,
and restores these selected buffers in the same window after
restoring from the desktop file.

> I think one wants that starting Emacs all those buffer are in tabs.

I can't imagine how to display all available buffers in tabs.
Usually I have dozens of buffers visited in the same session,
and fitting all them in the same tab-line would be impossible.

> I have built the same source of the branch on Windows.
>
> Here there is an issue before using M-x global... : the mouse does not work
> on the tool bar. Indeed I modified my init.el to not use the tabbar-ruler
> from MELPA and when I tried to save it clicking on the tool bar icon, 'save
> current buffer...', the minibuffer showed "mouse-1 is undefined".

This could be fixed by refactoring tool-bar Windows code.

> Any way, C-x C-s helped me and after restarting Emacs I noticed the following.
>
> Only a few buffer in tabs, just to fill the window width, and this is
> good. But how are chosen the buffer to shows in tabs? apparently it
> seems at random,

The tab-line is centered around the current tab, so currently you can
scroll the tab-line by clicking on the leftmost/rightmost tab.  Although
better scrolling could be implemented too.

> and beside this, their name are only partially visible, too little.

Maybe we should not truncate tab names at all.

But as you wrote in another mail:

> Just a few suggestions to make these tabs more friendly..
>
> In tabbar-ruler from MELPA (see attachment), the tab line starts with a tab
> and the tabs adapt their length to the buffer name even if
> uniquify-buffer-name-style is set to forward: in this case the tab line
> contains fewer tabs or just one tab (consider a buffer with name :
> emacs-master-w64-x86_64-20190903_135542-release-build.log.bz2...). Only the
> last tab could be 'truncated'.

Is it really good to show just one long non-truncated tab name?
Maybe we should add an option for the tab width.

> In any case, one could scroll between tabs using the L-R arrows on the
> tab line (see attachment)...

We could add such scrolling as an option but I doubt if this is the easiest
way of finding and selecting the tab.