[TxMt] UI suggestion for tabbed file names

[Eric O'Brien]

I think this observation is key:

On Feb 22, 2006, at 6:01 AM, Dave Baldwin wrote:
>
> On 22 Feb 2006, at 13:32, Christopher Creutzig wrote:
>
> Anyhow my real point was you couldn't instantly see which files  
> needed saving without having to read along the tabs.  Try having a  
> dozen or so files open and the odd one or two dirty.  Using colour  
> and/or a symbol / no symbol to show this works much better than  
> using two symbols, one of which is always showing.
>
> Dave.

I'm sure there must be some sort of Interface Design Rule about  
this.  You don't need a mark/alarm/indicator to show when an item is  
in a "safe" state... you only need to change the presentation from a  
normal one when you need to indicate an UNSAFE (warning) state.  I  
recall a discussion of the design of instrumentation for needle read- 
outs in an airplane cockpit.  In this case, all the instruments were  
designed so that if the needle pointed to "3 o'clock" that indicated  
a "normal" condition, regardless of what was being measured.  The  
benefit was that the pilot did not need to "read" each individual  
gauge.  Instead, with a glance, they could instantly detect a problem  
and home in on it.

One problem is that the "close" widget on the tabs is doing double  
duty by also indicating whether the file has been saved or not.   
That's "overloading an affordance" ... or something.  I think it's  
illegal!  ;)

It would probably be MUCH easier to quickly scan a number of tabs and  
understand which files were dirty if the "dirty" indicator were  
separated from the "click here to close this tab" indicator.  For  
example, if "click here to close" ALWAYS showed as an "x" and "dirty"  
was indicated by underlined or bolded text in the tab.

eo







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