Re: [Epiphany] Tabs options

[Luis Villa <louie ximian com>]

On Fri, 2003-08-29 at 07:59, Marco Pesenti Gritti wrote:
> I think we need to fix the preferences for tabs in 1.2. Currently we
> have one pref "Open in tabs by default", that doesnt do what it is say
> (external links and popups are opened in windows) and that does more of
> what it says (tab bar is ever visible when set.
> 
> Trying to summarize, there are 4 boolean preferences:
> 
> Ever show the tab bar
> 
> I consider it a work around pref to avoid page movement when opening
> second tab -> it should only be in gconf, no ui for it.
> Dave suggested that tab bar on the bottom could solve the actual problem.
> 
> Open popups in tab
> 
> This is more controversial. It can be considered a work around for
> lacking popups blocking or a way to do popup blocking that better feel
> some people needs. I'd tend to say gconf only but I'm not super strong
> feeling
> 
> Open in tab on middle click
> 
> This is a mess. We could decide to turn on middle click in tabs by
> default but if we decide we need a pref, a better description is
> necessary, to limit it only to the cases it's actually used. Currently
> both external links and popups doesnt follow it, so the label is wrong.
> 
> External links in tabs
> 
> There are people that use only one window with tabs, like true MDI.
> I dont think supporting MDI make much sense in epiphany... so this would
> be just a make hackers happy thing. It could be grouped with popups
> (resulting in a MDI switch) or we could just keep current command line
> option.
> 
> Costs/benefits evaluation of the 2-3 hidden prefs. 
> 1 The MDI switch which would now really open everything in tabs (also
> external links and popups). This should be definately an hidden pref
> because it implements something that HIG dissugest (gedit uuughh ;),
> and because it introduce potentially crack results (links opened in a
> "random" window). Costs could be not trivial here (popups in tabs are
> a pain to implement and could cause bugs), but benefits could be good
> (a lot of people are likely to use it).
> 2 The autohide thing. If we can solve that with tabs position great,
> but I think it's something that need to be discussed with usability
> guys, we would introduce an inconsistency with other apps. Otherwise
> here I think both costs and benefits are lower. The implementation is
> very simple but I doubt many people would bother changing the pref ...
> 
> Finally the only interesting thing from an interface design pov here is
> the middle click->open in tab by default thing. I think it make sense because
> if we support tabs as a threaded navigation tool, we should definately use
> it by default when opening links in another "page".
> Also we would have a complete "tabs as threaded navigation tool" implementation,
> without need of tweaking settings.
> This obviously imply tabs are a good tool for threaded navigation.
> (but if they arent, why we support them ?)
> 
> /me is sort of worried of the flames we will get if we remove the
> last tab pref :)
> 
> I'd really like to hear opinions about these before we start to make changes.
> I want to start making changes only if when we see the big picture.

I'm not quite clear here, but are you saying that the big picture is 'we
want threaded navigation and tabs are how we do that?'

Luis