[TxMt] document tabs redux / wish list

[David Lee]

Hi Allen / all , here's an account of my opinion on what might be done 
about tabs. A general wish list follows in no consistent order.

1) < and > arrows appear when more tabs are open than fit. You scroll 
all the tabs left or right to see tabs offscreen. It scrolls one tab at 
a time.

2) When you use the keyboard to move through open files, the 
arrangement of tabs move to keep the currently open file's tab visible 
at all times.

3) The drop-down list of offscreen tabs should stay.

4) Make people aware that you can hit ctrl-cmd-n to get a new project 
window, drag the files you're currently working on in there and use the 
project drawer to flip between them. I just extrapolated this from one 
of Allen's other posts and it feels very promising.

Can we be able to 'open these tabs in new project' with a menu command 
/ shortcut? It's not the perfect long term solution but will always be 
useful whatever is.

4) A proper buffer list. Something very like 'Go To File' (which is 
fantastic) but shows only open files (grouped by window if more than 
one window is open.

Visual indication of files' status (whether saved, etc), and keyboard 
shortcuts to close / save files would round it out nicely.

Maybe the immediate solution is to base this completely on the 'Go To 
File' window; say Command-shift-T opens GTF constrained to files open 
in tabs.

Maybe it's to run it in the project drawer (with modifier key or combo 
to toggle). Or a drawer on the other side. The important things are 
that its really fast & cosy to access and use, and TextMatey.

I think the buffer list could stand to evolve into something really 
cool. Emac's & Vim's are useful as hell, and are arguably more 
convenient than tabs most of the time.

5) What you said about making new tabs 'opt-in' like in safari

------

Oh yeah. I'm a split view junkie. Up-down, left-right, any combination. 
Just the way nature intended.

I'd love to see a good regular expression composer (Komodo does this 
superbly, Kdevelop well too).

And a lean keyboard-aware file manager to rival dired (but which looks 
slightly more like NewsFire).

And a (breathtakingly innovative) way to interact with a terminal 
inside TextMate.

And a well considered 'intellisense' implementation which can include 
your own completion items (and later, those in included files) in heaps 
of languages.

Better thought out (two way) clipboard history  / more emacs-like kill 
ring.

'Numbered buffers' like Vi.

Multiple 'paste previous' / 'paste next' commands rewrite the last 
ones' output (which can probably be hacked by leaving it selected after 
each paste, but thats not ideal).

Keybindings to
- 'bounce' on braces / parens / quotes
- move cursor to start / end of current paragraph
- select current paragraph / function

Vi style commands like 63,72d  ... ;) (well this is a wishlist ..)

Hard wrap & manually prompted reflow.

A function / class browser.

Better print output (allow choice of different font for printing; 
programmer fonts look terrible) & optionally include syntax 
highlighting & line numbers.

cheers

| ) /\Vi| )


On 30/03/2005, at 1:24 AM, Allan Odgaard wrote:

> On Mar 29, 2005, at 9:00, Bryan Wood wrote:
>
>> Can it be an option?
>
> Sorry, no. I want to pursue a better handling of tabs, not start to 
> add options to suit every persons individual taste ;)
>
> ______________________________________________________________________
> For new threads USE THIS: textmate at lists.macromates.com
> (threading gets destroyed and the universe will collapse if you don't)
> http://lists.macromates.com/mailman/listinfo/textmate
>