Information Area taking over worksheet

[chris dunn <chris iccqs com>]

Gnumeric has started a very annoying habit of opening up a box to the
left of the Information Area (bottom right corner of the display) in
width so that the width of the display of tab names is much reduced.
This results in only being able to see a small number of the sheet tab
names instead of a full-width display showing a larger number of sheet
tab names. I'm not sure what this box is called or what is it's
function.

Now I'm sure this didn't use to happen, and when I opened one of my
sheets with lots of tabs I could see all (or very many) of the sheet
tab names in almost the full-width of the display after opening the
sheet. As far as I recall this spacing remained static, and there was no
attempt by the box left of the Information Area to hijack the space.
Perhaps there was no such box?

Now when I open a sheet I seem to get a fairly normal sized Information
Area, an empty box to the left of the IA taking up about 2/3 of the
display width, and a small area to the left of that with just a couple
of the tab names shown. There is a handle left of the empty box which
allows me to minimise its width and display more tab names. Fine, but
then while I'm working this rogue box once again widens and closes down
the tab names so that I have to keep going through the process of
reducing the box width. 

Am I the only one suffering from this infuriating behaviour or is it an
aggravation to others also? Am I missing something obvious which would
allow me to control this rude box? What is the box for? Can I dispense
with it?

Help, please.


-- 

Chris Dunn