[TxMt] UI suggestion for tabbed file names

[Dr. Drang]

On Feb 23, 2006, at 12:16 AM, Eric O'Brien wrote:

> 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.

I'd like to add a mild complaint about the way unsaved files are  
denoted in a window without tabs. The slight dimming of the icon next  
to the filename in the titlebar is not a distinct enough indicator.  
It's OK when you have several windows up on the screen and can  
compare dimmed to undimmed icons, but when you have nothing to  
compare to, the state of the file is not obvious (not to my middle- 
aged eyes, anyway).

I'm assuming that, like me, Allan doesn't consider the dot in the  
middle of the red close button to be a sufficiently "loud" indicator,  
otherwise he wouldn't have added his own.

--
Dr. Drang