Had another go at the tab thing tonight, trying to get it a little more "aqua"... The result is attached.
Both Allan and myself have pretty much turned down the idea. Whilst I think they look great, they're a little too small, and the X and dot don't stand out enough... I'd probably have to start again with a new (slightly larger) "red ball" (this one was borrowed from OmniWeb).
But these flat crosses are becoming a little bit of a de-facto OSX standard in one form or another -- most tabbed apps are using them, so I figure there's no need to rock the boat.
We're also ummming and ahhhhing about coloring the selected tab from white to something else (like an Aqua blue), but my preference is definitely white.
For what it's worth (Drew, et al), yes, I'd love to have the selected tab bleed into the document, but Allan doesn't dig it, and it does have some issues in regards to the colour of the document (eg Ruby's black) which are a not exactly simple to work around. One day maybe :)
Justin
On Mon, 18 Oct 2004 23:02:35 +1000, Justin French wrote:
For what it's worth (Drew, et al), yes, I'd love to have the selected tab bleed into the document, but Allan doesn't dig it, and it does have some issues in regards to the colour of the document (eg Ruby's black) which are a not exactly simple to work around.
I think the reason this seems necessary is the way that the tabs adjoin the document area. You'll notice that Safari puts the tabs the other way up, so that they adjoin the toolbar instead.
Admittedly, TM doesn't have a toolbar, but I do wonder if the tabs would work the other way up anyway, adjoining the window title bar rather than the document area. Sadly, no mockup is forthcoming from me on this!
It could be a really bad idea, of course. I'm just wondering.
Cheers, Andrew.
On 18/10/2004, at 11:32 PM, Andrew Green wrote:
On Mon, 18 Oct 2004 23:02:35 +1000, Justin French wrote:
For what it's worth (Drew, et al), yes, I'd love to have the selected tab bleed into the document, but Allan doesn't dig it, and it does have some issues in regards to the colour of the document (eg Ruby's black) which are a not exactly simple to work around.
I think the reason this seems necessary is the way that the tabs adjoin the document area. You'll notice that Safari puts the tabs the other way up, so that they adjoin the toolbar instead.
Yes, but it's a flawed analogy for "tabs" and their function. You only think it works well in Safari because
a) Apple did it b) You're used to it c) You're probably an above-average user you translated Safari's tab analogy back to what you know about tabs.
Sorry, but I don't see the logic in upside-down tabs unless they're at the bottom of a document.
Justin
On Tue, 19 Oct 2004 10:17:40 +1000, Justin French wrote:
Yes, but it's a flawed analogy for "tabs" and their function.
Fair enough. FWIW, I really like Juan's "Tiger blue" approach as well.
Cheers, Andrew.
Had another go at the tab thing tonight, trying to get it a little more "aqua"... The result is attached. <mock2.png> Both Allan and myself have pretty much turned down the idea. Whilst I think they look great, they're a little too small, and the X and dot don't stand out enough... I'd probably have to start again with a new (slightly larger) "red ball" (this one was borrowed from OmniWeb).
While probably ignoring the Aqua GUI standard here, but could the 'red' dot / (X) close box work as follows:
red = Unsaved document green (or other colour) = saved document
active document would remain as it is in b7.
That way we could see instantly which doc's are unsaved when we work with a gazillion tabs open.
But these flat crosses are becoming a little bit of a de-facto OSX standard in one form or another -- most tabbed apps are using them, so I figure there's no need to rock the boat.
If the above could be done, then I'd prefer the (X) rather than the dot-bubble-thing.
We're also ummming and ahhhhing about coloring the selected tab from white to something else (like an Aqua blue), but my preference is definitely white.
Mine too !!
For what it's worth (Drew, et al), yes, I'd love to have the selected tab bleed into the document, but Allan doesn't dig it, and it does have some issues in regards to the colour of the document (eg Ruby's black) which are a not exactly simple to work around. One day maybe :)
That would be nice, but surely not anything that's urgent. IF it can be done easily and quickly then by all means do it.
Kind regards,
Mats
Hello,
On 18 Oct 2004, at 14:02, Justin French wrote:
For what it's worth (Drew, et al), yes, I'd love to have the selected tab bleed into the document, but Allan doesn't dig it, and it does have some issues in regards to the colour of the document (eg Ruby's black) which are a not exactly simple to work around. One day maybe :)
For what it's worth without the bleeding into the document and using the current colour scheme I find it difficult to tell which is the current tab. I realise logically that it's the one that is different to all the others but at a glance I still find it difficult to tell.
So personally I think that the highlighted colour needs to be stronger, or it needs to bleed. It might be interesting to note that the safari tabs bleed upwards.
Alternatively NoteBook's tabs (which are vertical) look more like the tabs you buy from stationary shops:
I think they have a very obvious selected feel because the graphic for selected and non-selected are different.
Richard
On 18. Oct 2004, at 15:56, Richard Chamberlain wrote:
For what it's worth without the bleeding into the document and using the current colour scheme I find it difficult to tell which is the current tab. I realise logically that it's the one that is different to all the others but at a glance I still find it difficult to tell.
Here's how it looks with the latest graphics, I think it's made a tad clearer:
The bleed-in is difficult because of the different document background colors. But I'm getting more comfortable with the thought though... ;)
Kind regards Allan
On 18.10.2004, at 21:15, Allan Odgaard wrote:
Here's how it looks with the latest graphics, I think it's made a tad clearer: <pastedGraphic1.tiff>
I think that the new tabs are definitely better than the old ones and this latest mockup looks even better. However, I still have to second Richard's opinion. The current tab doesn't stand out enough. This is especially the case if the background of the text file is black. One reason for this is probably that the background of the tab bar is of almost the same color as the current tab. Now all the light grays contrast so strongly against the black that it's very hard to distinguish the current tab from others.
I too like the idea of a thin bleed-in stripe between the tab bar and the document, as proposed a few times.
//jarkko
-- Jarkko Laine http://jlaine.net
Justin French wrote:
We're also ummming and ahhhhing about coloring the selected tab from white to something else (like an Aqua blue), but my preference is definitely white.
Perhaps make the difference in colour stand out a bit more ? More % gray on the others or something?
Or take another approach and make the name of the current tab in bold/underline/italics/slightly bigger font.
Jeroen.
On Oct 18, 2004, at 6:02 AM, Justin French wrote:
Had another go at the tab thing tonight, trying to get it a little more "aqua"... The result is attached.
<mock2.png>
Both Allan and myself have pretty much turned down the idea. Whilst I think they look great, they're a little too small, and the X and dot don't stand out enough... I'd probably have to start again with a new (slightly larger) "red ball" (this one was borrowed from OmniWeb).
Please nothing like this red icon. I REALLY like the subtle grey up there. This would be too much...
Keep up the good work!
Eric Curtis
I tried a couple things, too. I made a softer X and added some space below the tab. I tried to do a "tiger" blue, but I don't know if I'm 100% sold on it yet. What do you guys think?
- Juan Carlos
On Mon, 18 Oct 2004 23:02:35 +1000, Justin French justin.french@indent.com.au wrote:
Had another go at the tab thing tonight, trying to get it a little more "aqua"... The result is attached.
Both Allan and myself have pretty much turned down the idea. Whilst I think they look great, they're a little too small, and the X and dot don't stand out enough... I'd probably have to start again with a new (slightly larger) "red ball" (this one was borrowed from OmniWeb).
But these flat crosses are becoming a little bit of a de-facto OSX standard in one form or another -- most tabbed apps are using them, so I figure there's no need to rock the boat.
We're also ummming and ahhhhing about coloring the selected tab from white to something else (like an Aqua blue), but my preference is definitely white.
For what it's worth (Drew, et al), yes, I'd love to have the selected tab bleed into the document, but Allan doesn't dig it, and it does have some issues in regards to the colour of the document (eg Ruby's black) which are a not exactly simple to work around. One day maybe :)
Justin
textmate mailing list textmate@lists.macromates.com http://lists.macromates.com/mailman/listinfo/textmate
On Mon, 18 Oct 2004 10:31:24 -0700, Juan Anorga juananorga@gmail.com wrote:
I tried a couple things, too. I made a softer X and added some space below the tab. I tried to do a "tiger" blue, but I don't know if I'm 100% sold on it yet. What do you guys think?
I like the "tiger blue".
ip
On 19/10/2004, at 3:31 AM, Juan Anorga wrote:
I tried a couple things, too. I made a softer X and added some space below the tab. I tried to do a "tiger" blue, but I don't know if I'm 100% sold on it yet. What do you guys think?
Juan,
I really like this... will talk with Allan about it today.
Justin
According to Justin French:
I really like this... will talk with Allan about it today.
It is nice yes but please everyone don't forget that having things standing out too much take the eyes from the text and that is not good as the main purpose f TM is to write text... :-)
Eye candy is nice but not everywere.
There's also NetNewsWire's implementation of tabs. See attachment.
I could see something like that working in TM esp. if we get a function bar between the tabs and the text document.
bongoman
On Oct 18, 2004, at 6:02 AM, Justin French wrote:
For what it's worth (Drew, et al), yes, I'd love to have the selected tab bleed into the document, but Allan doesn't dig it, and it does have some issues in regards to the colour of the document (eg Ruby's black) which are a not exactly simple to work around. One day maybe :)
You might find something to use in Camino's take:
The selected tab bleeds into a stripe that goes across the window, but is still separate from the document display. This helps indicate "this tab is live", but doesn't war with the rendered page.
--ceej
-
Allan Odgaard -
Andrew Green -
bongoman -
C J Silverio -
Eric Curtis -
Ivan Pan -
Jarkko Laine -
Jeroen -
Juan Anorga -
Justin French -
Mats Persson -
Ollivier Robert -
Richard Chamberlain