Re: Bug#45109: Manage open documents with tabbed list, like Konqueror

On Sunday 14 July 2002 16:06, Rizsanyi Zsolt wrote:
> On Sunday 14 July 2002 01:10, Anders Lund wrote:
> > On Saturday 13 July 2002 16:08, [email protected] wrote:
[snip]
> You should realize, that there are people, who dislike sidebars the same
> way you dislike tabbed-windows. Sidebars use up your precious screen
> estate. Tabs use up less screen, and it is taken from the vertical
> dimension, which is in some cases better.

Nothing prevents you from positioning the file list in horizintally in the top 
or bottom of your window, even though it don't do columns.

> So I there would be people who would like tabbed panes. And also there is a
> need, to have a simple menu entry (with shortcut), to disable the sidebar.
> Like in konqueror (Window|Show Navigation Panel F9).

Feel free to assing one (hint: Settings->Configure Shortcuts). One issue here 
is that Kate have several tool views rather than a "side bar", and some may 
be added by plugins, so finding available keys can quickly become a problem.

I cannot resist here to blame who ever wrote the settings->tool views actions: 
They miss accellerators. If menu items have accellerators, you actually have 
shortcuts, even they are sequences. But since Kate have so many acitons, you 
would probably need a multi key shortcut for some of them anyway. 

For example, I often use the text filter, and ALT + T, L is as good a shortcut 
as any;)

With the amount of actions that Kate has, single key shortcuts is a valuable 
resource, which should be used with care, and since for most users I assume 
toggeling tool view visibility is a rare action, having them in the menus 
should be enough.

And imo the toggle action actually behaves wrong - it should close/open the 
view consistently instead of the current inconsistent behaviour... That does 
need a fix.

> That way you can easily switch off the sidebar to do some editing, and
> switch it back, when you want to select a different file.
> This (the sidebar menu-shortcut) would be really nice, even if the tabs
> would not be implemented.

Look above.

What I do plan to implement is sorting options for the file list, as well as a 
"Go to" line edit with a shortcut and auto completion.

> As a final note: one of the most popular windows programmer editors
> UltraEdit, has both sidebar, and tabbed windows. And both are turned on by
> default. That way the user can see what he has available, and turn off what
> he does not need/dislike.

I deliberately chose to not have windows about 4 years ago. When I had it, I 
used a editor called Super NoteTab, which offered the same features. The only 
thing I disliked about it was the tabbar, because it lied in indicating a 
usable GUI.

So I am against having this feature, and even if it was there, I would be 
against having it on pr default, as it would tempt users to accept it. I 
don't believe we should keep using bad GUI designs, just because we grew 
accustomed to them.

As for konqueror, I get the exact same problem when using tabbed browsing: It 
dosen't work well. I like the opportunity for having sets of related 
documents grouped in a window, but the tab bar metafor falls short for the 
same reasons as it does in Kate: it fails to display more than a few 
documents, and it fails to work well with the frame system.

A document list view - like Kate's file list - would be better.

-anders