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Re: Separate area at the top for a serious tab bar
From: |
R. Diez |
Subject: |
Re: Separate area at the top for a serious tab bar |
Date: |
Mon, 25 Jun 2018 10:20:18 +0000 (UTC) |
> [...]
> 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.
> [...]
> (BTW, those keys don't work in my FF.)
They are standard in Firefox:
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/keyboard-shortcuts-perform-firefox-tasks-quickly#w_windows-tabs
You are probably using a Linux desktop environment that is eating those key
combinations. I had to tell mine to stop taking some key combinations for
virtual desktop switching, which I personally do not use.
> That is indeed neat, but isn't it fragile? It depends on you,
> the user, ordering the tabs. This looks like something a computer could do.
> [...]
On the contrary. I am the user, and I rule. 8-) Automatic ordering here would
not work. Sometimes, during testing, I keep seemingly-unrelated tabs next to
each other. For example, a shell buffer next to the script I am testing right
now, or the HTML page next to the C++ code that is generating it.
I do most of my buffer switching without even looking at the tabbar, with just
1 or 2 quick keystrokes, because I intuitively know where the buffer I want is
(2 steps left, or 1 step right). For a small group of related files, this
positional hint works better (at least for me) than rotating over the
last-visited buffers.
Best regards,
rdiez