When opening a document in a project that already has several tabs open, I find it very unpredictable where the new tab will go. It appears somewhere in the middle of the other tabs, and seems to disturb their order. Moreover, if I open a document whose tab is already open, it moves within the order of tabs.
All of that seems wrong and confusing, and makes it hard to keep track of which tab is which (because the order keeps changing so there is no positional memory). I would like to see the rule be:
* A document that is not already open, opens as the *first* tab. (I would really like it to be last, but that does not seem feasible because there might be too many tabs for the window, and it is pointless to hide the new tab off to the right.)
* A document that *is* already open, simply selects that tab, without changing the order of existing tabs.
m.
-- matt neuburg, phd = matt@tidbits.com, http://www.apeth.net/matt/ pantes anthropoi tou eidenai oregontai phusei Programming iOS 7! http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0636920031017.do iOS 7 Fundamentals! http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0636920032465.do RubyFrontier! http://www.apeth.com/RubyFrontierDocs/default.html TidBITS, Mac news and reviews since 1990, http://www.tidbits.com
On 27 Jan 2014, at 2:32 am, Matt Neuburg matt@tidbits.com wrote:
A document that is not already open, opens as the *first* tab. (I would really like it to be last, but that does not seem feasible because there might be too many tabs for the window, and it is pointless to hide the new tab off to the right.)
Consistency with other apps is something to consider here. Safari, Chrome, Terminal and Finder all place new tabs at the right end of the bar when opened with Command-T (though Chrome opens the tab to the right of the current one when you Command-click a link).
Maybe putting new tabs on the left *would* work (I've never experienced it)—but then wouldn't volatile tab position still be a problem?
With the current behaviour, positional memory is traded off for locality, presumably on the assumption that the tab you're opening is related to the file you're currently working on. I'm uncertain which is better (one works better if you treat tabs as ephemeral, one works better for laying out and organising your workspace).
However I think the other behaviour you describe, where opening a file that is already in a tab actually *moves the tab* to the right of the current one, is both disorienting and destructive. I'd vote for this to change.
–Adam
On Jan 26, 2014, at 7:44 PM, Adam Sharp adsharp@me.com wrote:
On 27 Jan 2014, at 2:32 am, Matt Neuburg matt@tidbits.com wrote:
A document that is not already open, opens as the *first* tab. (I would really like it to be last, but that does not seem feasible because there might be too many tabs for the window, and it is pointless to hide the new tab off to the right.)
Consistency with other apps is something to consider here. Safari, Chrome, Terminal and Finder all place new tabs at the right end of the bar when opened with Command-T (though Chrome opens the tab to the right of the current one when you Command-click a link).
Well, okay, but TextMate isn't doing that either. It's putting the new tab somewhere unpredictable in the middle. m.
-- matt neuburg, phd = matt@tidbits.com, http://www.apeth.net/matt/ pantes anthropoi tou eidenai oregontai phusei Programming iOS 7! http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0636920031017.do iOS 7 Fundamentals! http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0636920032465.do RubyFrontier! http://www.apeth.com/RubyFrontierDocs/default.html TidBITS, Mac news and reviews since 1990, http://www.tidbits.com
On 27 Jan 2014, at 2:52 pm, Matt Neuburg matt@tidbits.com wrote:
On Jan 26, 2014, at 7:44 PM, Adam Sharp adsharp@me.com wrote:
On 27 Jan 2014, at 2:32 am, Matt Neuburg matt@tidbits.com wrote:
A document that is not already open, opens as the *first* tab. (I would really like it to be last, but that does not seem feasible because there might be too many tabs for the window, and it is pointless to hide the new tab off to the right.)
Consistency with other apps is something to consider here. Safari, Chrome, Terminal and Finder all place new tabs at the right end of the bar when opened with Command-T (though Chrome opens the tab to the right of the current one when you Command-click a link).
Well, okay, but TextMate isn't doing that either...
Agreed. My point was that in changing the behaviour, what it is changed *to* should take into consideration what other OS X apps are doing.
...It's putting the new tab somewhere unpredictable in the middle.
I was under the impression that new tabs are always opened to the right of the current tab.
–Adam
On Jan 26, 2014, at 8:02 PM, Adam Sharp adsharp@me.com wrote:
I was under the impression that new tabs are always opened to the right of the current tab.
Maybe. But then what I'm saying is: that's a bad rule, since it destroys the muscle memory (or whatever you call it) for the existing tabs you've been working with already. It should open first or last, but it should not disturb or interrupt the existing sequence. m.
-- matt neuburg, phd = matt@tidbits.com, http://www.apeth.net/matt/ pantes anthropoi tou eidenai oregontai phusei Programming iOS 7! http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0636920031017.do iOS 7 Fundamentals! http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0636920032465.do RubyFrontier! http://www.apeth.com/RubyFrontierDocs/default.html TidBITS, Mac news and reviews since 1990, http://www.tidbits.com
On 27 Jan 2014, at 11:25, Matt Neuburg wrote:
I was under the impression that new tabs are always opened to the right of the current tab.
Maybe. But then what I'm saying is: that's a bad rule, since it destroys the muscle memory (or whatever you call it) for the existing tabs you've been working with already. It should open first or last, but it should not disturb or interrupt the existing sequence.
I guess this depens on your workflow. The current behavior means that you can consistently “open” a document and then use ⌘W (“close”) to go back to your previous document (this works regardless of wether you had the document already open or not).
Chrome tries to achieve the same by a) mostly opening to the right, and b) when you use ⌘T for “new tab” it opens at the end of the tab bar, but ⌘W will jump back to your previously used tab (most of the time) to compensate for not opening new tabs to the right of the current one. It does not have to deal with the issue of re-opening a tab/document.
On 27 Jan 2014, at 3:54 pm, Allan Odgaard mailinglist@textmate.org wrote:
Chrome tries to achieve the same by a) mostly opening to the right, and b) when you use ⌘T for “new tab” it opens at the end of the tab bar, but ⌘W will jump back to your previously used tab (most of the time) to compensate for not opening new tabs to the right of the current one. It does not have to deal with the issue of re-opening a tab/document.
And this is much better than Safari, which doesn't make any effort to remember your previous tab.
On 26 Jan 2014, at 22:32, Matt Neuburg wrote:
- A document that *is* already open, simply selects that tab, without
changing the order of existing tabs.
I did a setting for this (which will be in next build): https://github.com/textmate/textmate/commit/7ced73244f4ae4ef850f133d7818088d...
As for always opening as first or last tab, I don’t think it’s worth having a setting for that. Generally things are inserted at “current position” (list items, text, etc.) and I think that should go for tabs as well. Anyone who wants them first or last, can then re-order, and with the above setting, the tabs will be stable.
On Jan 29, 2014, at 1:23 AM, Allan Odgaard mailinglist@textmate.org wrote:
Anyone who wants them first or last, can then re-order, and with the above setting, the tabs will be stable
Sounds great to me. Thanks! Looking forward to trying it. m.
-- matt neuburg, phd = matt@tidbits.com, http://www.apeth.net/matt/ pantes anthropoi tou eidenai oregontai phusei Programming iOS 7! http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0636920031017.do iOS 7 Fundamentals! http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0636920032465.do RubyFrontier! http://www.apeth.com/RubyFrontierDocs/default.html TidBITS, Mac news and reviews since 1990, http://www.tidbits.com
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