[TxMt] how do you close excess tabbed files?

[Allan Odgaard]

On Jan 4, 2005, at 17:11, Wayne Larsen wrote:

>> If I think further I believe the distinction between opened files and 
>> files in the project is artificial. It is a traditional distinction, 
>> but tradition sometimes can be improved as iTunes did.
> I agree with this.  I am amazed at (and impressed by!)  those of you 
> who only work with several files at one time

Clearly this must be task-dependent. The distinction is not really open 
files for me but more like 'active' files.

For example, if I need to do the filtered file selector, then I create 
FileSelector.mm and FileSelector.h. It's called upon by the project 
controller (so ProjectController.mm needs one or more changes) and I'll 
use ToDo.txt as scratch-pad for ideas (and update ReleaseNotes_in.txt 
when I'm done).

So for the next hour or so, I'll have these 5 files “open” and forget 
about the rest of the project (which contains hundreds of files in a 
hierarchical structure).

So the tabs is a filtered view of the entire project for me.

> [...] The spotlight filtered textfield is a very strong idea.

Yes, as implied above, I think I'll do this in a moment and unless 
problems arise, it's likely to be in b2.

The list of open files in the project drawer is partly planned for when 
re-doing the project drawer, since when introducing ftp there'll be 
distinct groups in the drawer (FTP Server, Folder Reference, Custom 
Grouping, etc.) and here smart folders should be a new item (where the 
criterion could be 'file is open/unsaved').

But the filtered file selector I'll be adding is likely to make this 
smart folder less of a desire.

> Grouping related files into a single tab is an interesting idea, 
> however, I'm not convinced that the effort to create and maintain 
> these groups, and the ui required to differentiate between members of 
> a tab group and shortcuts between them would make the idea really 
> effective.

I'm not sure either about the grouping other than 'same basename', 
which currently is very useful for languages that have source/header 
pairs. Although it's more just being able to switch between the two 
with a hotkey, but in the future I think it would be nice to have them 
in the same tab.

> At the risk of repeatedly banging the same drum, I also believe that 
> working history is also a useful way to switch between files.

The tabs actually comes from working history. Initially each time a 
file was clicked, it would be added to the end of the history (like a 
browser), and one could use cmd-option left/right. The tabs just made 
the history visible, able to re-arrange items in the history, and 
removed the 'pop to front' when clicking already open files.