[TxMt] Re: Automatic vs. manual tabs

[Steve King]

Trevor Harmon wrote:

> On Sep 8, 2008, at 6:53 PM, Thomas Allen wrote:
>
>> Yes.
>>
> What is it that you like, exactly? Would you also prefer your web
> browser to work the same way? (i.e., every click of a link opens it in
> a new tab)
>
I don't know Thomas's reasoning, but I can tell you why I prefer the
current method. In a browser, most of the time when I click a link it
means I'm done with the current page and want a new one. In an editor,
opening a file does /not/ mean I'm done with the old one. I almost
certainly plan to return to it. So, the two apps each do the correct
thing "most of the time". The browser re-uses the tab, and the editor
opens a new one.

One situation never occurs in a browser but is very, /very/ common in an
editor: What happens when you have unsaved changes in the current file
then open a new file in the same tab? Should the editor auto-save the
current file? Discard changes? Ask the user? None of those approaches
are very satisfying.

Some editors have separate concepts of "window" and "buffer". The buffer
contains a file. The window displays a buffer. You may have active
buffers that aren't displayed, or you may have multiple windows
displaying a single buffer. In those editors it's not so bad to load a
new file into the existing window. The old file is still there in its
own buffer, it's just no longer being displayed. TextMate doesn't follow
that paradigm, though. TextMate has a one-to-one correspondence between
the window (tab) and the file. I assume that changing that paradigm
would mean a huge code change.

I do think that TextMate needs a way to somehow scroll the tabs in a
manner similar to Firefox. Not being able to see and re-arrange tabs to
the right of the viewport is really annoying. Yes, TextMate's tab
handling is the same as Safari's and probably follows the Apple UI
guidelines, but it's awkward. Firefox's technique of being able to
scroll the tab bar left and right is much easier to use when many tabs
are open.

-- 
Steve King
Sr. Software Engineer
Arbor Networks
+1 734 821 1461
www.arbornetworks.com <http://www.arbornetworks.com/>

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