Will Tabbed Windows Be the Next Big Thing? 528
kai_hiwatari writes "The recently released KDE SC 4.4 Beta 1 has introduced tabbed windows as a new feature. It is now possible to tab together windows from different applications. This looks like it will be a very good productivity tool. Like the tabbed browsers, this may well end up as a feature in all desktop environments in the years ahead."
So what? (Score:5, Informative)
Fluxbox (and probably something else before *box) had tab grouping windows long time ago.
Re:This is just the dumbest thing I have ever hear (Score:5, Informative)
Tabbed browsing makes sense. You have one application, a web browser, with multiple pages, taking up less screen space. It's tabbed so you don't have to click on a bunch of minimized windows or use Expose or whatever shiny workalike the Gnome / KDE bunch has now to find what you want, and so you aren't cluttering up the desktop with a hundred web browser windows.
However, there is something to be said for separating out the different applications and simply clicking the icon or what have you, to switch between them. In fact, isn't that what Windows has had for about 15 years now? Sure, the application tab bar goes on the bottom the screen by default, and is called the "Start Menu" but it is essentially, exactly what is proposed here.
The problem is that you end up filling up the bar, and then having to collapse the bar in one of several ways, all of which are annoying.
Expose, or whatever the Gnome / KDE equivalent is, is so much handier.
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Switcher [insentient.net] is a Windows version of Expose which offers great customization. If you want to combine the best of OSX and Windows, you absolutely need Switcher. I find myself using the taskbar 2/3 of the time, but there are definitely times when the wonderful Expose-like behavior is the most efficient way to switch between windows. Map it to a 4th or 5th mouse button.
Re:So what? (Score:3, Informative)
To my knowledge PWM had tabs before both Fluxbox and Ion (although I've heard scores of Fluxbox users who have claimed that Fluxbox was the first WM with tabs even though Fluxbox didn't even exist until some time after PWM was released (the other popular lightweight WM at the time was Blackbox and Fluxbox was, to many PWM users, basically just Blackbox with PWM's tabs)).
/Mikael
Re:Simply put (Score:5, Informative)
The Windows taskbar, in spite of its name, doesn't understand human tasks at all: instead, it would group all browsers together, all editors together, all terminals together, and so on. This is stupid and useless. With tabbed heterogeneous windows, instead, I would be able to group webpage-related windows together, and C-related windows together. It sounds like a very useful feature to me.
Re:Yes (Score:3, Informative)
Wrong (Score:5, Informative)
Google: Virtual Desktop
I've also seen Beta-software: Deskloops v2.0.1.0 (2007) - which tended to be somewhat buggy, but let you create Windows to contain other windows/apps.
More likely TaskBar customization will arise that allows customIcons to conain multiple apps/windows than a dated Tab implementation.
Re:Yes (Score:2, Informative)
Manually dragging the edges of windows can suck, but in 'traditional' setups, you use the lower right corner (which is a big target) to adjust the size and the title bar (which is a big target) to adjust the position. Most Linux WMs also have ALT shortcut which makes large percentages of the windows 'hot' for adjustment.
In my experience, corners and title bars are still generally small enough that hunting and pecking is required - I can never casually slide my cursor to the target and immediately begin resizing/moving - that only happens with alt+left mouse button (drag) or alt+middle mouse button (resize).
It's a shame Windows doesn't have this kind of functionality built-in. I don't know about Mac, but since my switch from Windows XP to Ubuntu, alt+clicking to move/resize, along with workspaces and Compiz' Grid plugin to move and resize windows to fit an imagined grid, has been the main efficiency booster for me.
I'm not saying every ordinary user should have this kind of configuring work forced on them, it's just a really good reason for *me* to make the switch.
(And of course, a proper command line and an OS with an extensive "built-in" software catalog (Debian's/Ubuntu's apt repositories) that's free and that doesn't suck have also been compelling reasons.)
Re:Yes (Score:2, Informative)
Compiz has a 'raise on click' config option which can be disabled. I'm not sure of the internal representation, but it is in General Options of ccsm. Be sure to set a keyboard shortcut to 'Raise window' - though if you don't, alt-tab or clicking the window list will do.
I'm not sure if a similar option is available in Metacity or whatever else you happen to be using, although it would seem likely.
If you do look into compiz or are using it, you might want to also look at disabling click to focus (making way for the focus-follows-mouse mode you mentioned) and the Opacify plugin (under Accessibility*), which will make windows in front of the window you're hovering over partly transparent. I use this to great effect. [lolwh.at]
* ...As if not being able to see through windows is a disability.
Re:Simply put (Score:3, Informative)
"What workspaces need though is the ability to create workspaces when you need them and destroy them when they're unneeded as opposed to having a fixed number of them,"
I'm using a Gnome desktop on Ubuntu Intrepid. I right click the desktop icon at the bottom right of the desktop, and I get a GUI menu in which I can do exactly that. It takes all of about 5 seconds.
As for identifying them, each desktop icon has an icon in it, identifying which application is maximized in it. I don't know if that meets your requirements, or if not, why not. You didn't mention what distro you use, or what desktop environment.
Re:Wrong (Score:1, Informative)
Microsoft has offered a virtual desktop manager in PowerToys for years.
YouTube have it (Score:5, Informative)
There's a nice walk through of some of the KDE 4.4 additions in this YouTube clip [youtube.com]. The Window Grouping preview starts at 4:28 into the show.
Re:Yes (Score:5, Informative)
You need to get a bigger screen.
The above comment was posted in demonstration of the Prime Rule of Requirements Deflection: tell the user that they want something other than what they ask for.
Re:BeOS (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Wrong (Score:2, Informative)
> Windows has had multiple desktops since Win98 (or before).
No. Not really.
It's had a few pisspoor attempts at clones that would annoy anyone used to proper multiple desktops.
Re:Simply put (Score:2, Informative)
Comment removed (Score:3, Informative)
Re:So what? (Score:3, Informative)
Yeah, but try explaining that to a non-technical user. Good luck getting past the definition of a window manager.... getting it into the default install is a crucial step to making it "real" in the sense that non-gurus actually use it.
Re:Yes (Score:3, Informative)
Same reason why newspapers and magazines print in columns. Unfortunately, proper columns still aren't a part of the CSS specification, meaning that it'll be several years before we see them in the wild on the web.
A draft specification has languished within the w3c for 8 or so years. Firefox and webkit both offer [quirksmode.org] their own proprietary implementations that should be vaguely compatible with the draft specification.
IE doesn't offer support for anything of this sort. (In fact, Microsoft's own documentation offers a surprisingly handy reference to the many bits of CSS that IE chooses to ignore [microsoft.com])