[txmt-dev] Re: Main Window UI Concept

[Daniel]

On Aug 24, 2012, at 12:56 , Michael Sheets wrote:

> I've posted the first of a few concept designs to the wiki for discussion and feedback:
> 
> https://github.com/textmate/textmate/wiki/Main-Window


Very nice! Clean, discreet and functional.

One thing I'd also like to see, is to have the tab bar constrained to the editor pane (if this is already possible, just ignore me. Don't have TM2 on this machine).

While the full-width tab bar allows for more tabs, I'd happily trade that away for a more logcal (to me) layout. Switching tabs switches files, i.e. the editor pane's content, not the sidebar. Personally, if I'm looking for the 1st tab, my eyes follow the gutter upwards - I don't expect the first tab to be above the sidebar. Similarly, I expect the top of the sidebar to be at the top of the window; not below the tab bar. In fact, the 1st tab might at a glance be mistaken for the sidebar's top bar, if the edges line up closely enough.

I.e. my mental model of the view hierarchy says

Window
	- Sidebar
	- Tab bar
		- Editor

but visually, it's layed out as though the sidebar is part of the tab/file.

I'm not an OS X dev, unfortunately, otherwise I'd pitch in with the development.

best of luck!
Daniel