[Epiphany] Re: Tabs options

["David Adam Bordoley" <bordoley msu edu>]

Marco Pesenti Gritti writes: 

> 
>> OK - didn't see this before (or hear of it which is surprising) 
>> 
>> My main thoughts are 
>> 
>> 1. The HIG talks about "several inherent usability problems" - which
>> are?

I think one of the main issues is inconsitencies inbetween document windows. 
Also most of the HIG authors favore a move to a more document based ui which 
MDI just doesn't work with. Basically we want to move away from the concept 
of applications as first class user interaction elements towards to 
documents as the main object that users interact with. This isn't going to 
happen in the gnome 2 time frame, but projects such as medusa, and storage 
could help make a future version of gnome move in this direction. 


>> 
>> 2. No mention of usability problems with SDI, which there are many,
>> keyboard navigation, screen space limits leading to too many mouse
>> clicks, more difficult to edit /view more than one file at the same
>> time.

Just for the record, I really think a tabbed based window manager that 
allowed the users to tab together any type of document window regardless of 
the app being used to view the file would be a great usability plus and 
create consistency across apps. 

>> 4. Just generally I hate SDI in applications, (wish OO, abiword,gnumeric
>> didn't do it)
> 
>> 3. Tabbed browsing is THE main plus point quoted in favour of
>> galeon/mozilla/epiphany as opposed to ie
> 
> Tabbed browsing doesnt necessarily mean MDI. As I said I tend to consider
> it more like a tool for threaded browsing ... (and I've seen it quoted like that
> at least in one of these IE/mozilla comparisons).

I agree with marco, tabs are particualarly useful for browsing because they 
allow threaded navigation. This doesn't mean that apps ought to be 
impelemented using mdi. Most of us tab foes would much prefer them to 
implemented in the wm (MPT included). 

dave