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<p>Trevor Harmon wrote:</p>
<blockquote cite="mid:58F026BE-8294-4174-B1D1-F9F842CB5A00@vocaro.com"
type="cite">
<p>On Sep 8, 2008, at 6:53 PM, Thomas Allen wrote:</p>
<blockquote type="cite">
<p>Yes.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>What is it that you like, exactly? Would you also prefer your web
browser to work the same way? (i.e., every click of a link opens it in
a new tab)</p>
</blockquote>
<p>I don't know Thomas's reasoning, but I can tell you why I prefer the
current method. In a browser, most of the time when I click a link it
means I'm done with the current page and want a new one. In an editor,
opening a file does <i>not</i> mean I'm done with the old one. I
almost certainly plan to return to it. So, the two apps each do the
correct thing "most of the time". The browser re-uses the tab, and the
editor opens a new one.</p>
<p>One situation never occurs in a browser but is very, <i>very</i>
common in an editor: What happens when you have unsaved changes in the
current file then open a new file in the same tab? Should the editor
auto-save the current file? Discard changes? Ask the user? None of
those approaches are very satisfying.</p>
<p>Some editors have separate concepts of "window" and "buffer". The
buffer contains a file. The window displays a buffer. You may have
active buffers that aren't displayed, or you may have multiple windows
displaying a single buffer. In those editors it's not so bad to load a
new file into the existing window. The old file is still there in its
own buffer, it's just no longer being displayed. TextMate doesn't
follow that paradigm, though. TextMate has a one-to-one correspondence
between the window (tab) and the file. I assume that changing that
paradigm would mean a huge code change.</p>
<p>I do think that TextMate needs a way to somehow scroll the tabs in a
manner similar to Firefox. Not being able to see and re-arrange tabs to
the right of the viewport is really annoying. Yes, TextMate's tab
handling is the same as Safari's and probably follows the Apple UI
guidelines, but it's awkward. Firefox's technique of being able to
scroll the tab bar left and right is much easier to use when many tabs
are open.</p>
<div class="moz-signature"> --
<address class="c1"> Steve King<br>
Sr. Software Engineer<br>
Arbor Networks<br>
+1 734 821 1461<br>
<a href="http://www.arbornetworks.com/">www.arbornetworks.com</a> </address>
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