[TxMt] Re: tab position

[Adam Sharp]

On 27 Jan 2014, at 2:32 am, Matt Neuburg <matt at tidbits.com> wrote:

> A document that is not already open, opens as the *first* tab. (I would really like it to be last, but that does not seem feasible because there might be too many tabs for the window, and it is pointless to hide the new tab off to the right.)

Consistency with other apps is something to consider here. Safari, Chrome, Terminal and Finder all place new tabs at the right end of the bar when opened with Command-T (though Chrome opens the tab to the right of the current one when you Command-click a link).

Maybe putting new tabs on the left *would* work (I've never experienced it)—but then wouldn't volatile tab position still be a problem?

With the current behaviour, positional memory is traded off for locality, presumably on the assumption that the tab you're opening is related to the file you're currently working on. I'm uncertain which is better (one works better if you treat tabs as ephemeral, one works better for laying out and organising your workspace).

However I think the other behaviour you describe, where opening a file that is already in a tab actually *moves the tab* to the right of the current one, is both disorienting and destructive. I'd vote for this to change.

–Adam