SlickEdit Community

SlickEdit Product Discussion => SlickEdit® => Topic started by: jcelle on June 28, 2017, 09:47:45 AM

Title: Display tabs on mutliple rows
Post by: jcelle on June 28, 2017, 09:47:45 AM
Hello,
Is it possible to display the tabs of opened files on multiple rows so that they are all visible ?
I could find an old and long thread https://community.slickedit.com/index.php/topic,572.0.html (https://community.slickedit.com/index.php/topic,572.0.html) but apparently it got nowhere.
Thanks and regards.
Title: Re: Display tabs on mutliple rows
Post by: Dan on June 28, 2017, 03:40:04 PM
We don't have this... Here is what you could try:  Go to View>Tool Windows>Files, and then dock that to whatever side you like.  If you dock it to the right, you can see all of the files that are open. 

If you don't want to dock it, in CUA emulation this is bound to Ctrl+Shift+B.  This is how I work, I zoom the window so that the tabs aren't visible because I prefer to have the screen real estate for code.
Title: Re: Display tabs on mutliple rows
Post by: jcelle on June 29, 2017, 07:28:51 AM
Hi Dan,
Thanks for your relpy.
I had also thought I could do this, but the window you mentioned is not dockable, unless I miss something...
Title: Re: Display tabs on mutliple rows
Post by: jcelle on June 29, 2017, 07:30:53 AM
OK my mistake. I found the 'Dockable' option in contextual menu (right-click).
That is perfect for me.
Thanks again.
Title: Re: Display tabs on mutliple rows
Post by: Dan on June 29, 2017, 12:55:51 PM
Sorry, I thought the default was dockable.

If you get annoyed with the amount screen it takes up, I really would try it on a key.  If you don't like the default binding, you can just bind "list-buffers" to another key.
Title: Re: Display tabs on mutliple rows
Post by: Dennis on June 30, 2017, 05:50:43 PM
Another command to try is "document-tabs-list-buffers".  This works a lot like the list-buffers command, but drops down the list-box on your document tabs instead of bring up a whole tool window.
Title: Re: Display tabs on mutliple rows
Post by: jcelle on September 11, 2019, 01:22:53 PM
Hi Dennis,
I was checking this thread as a new version is coming out and saw your last post about 'document-tab-list-buffers' : it is far better than the 'list-buffers' I was using. So thanks for this one !
Do you know if the upcoming version (2019) will at last propose to display the tabs on multiple rows ?
Best regards.
Title: Re: Display tabs on mutliple rows
Post by: Dennis on September 11, 2019, 03:38:39 PM
We have not yet implemented multiple rows for document tabs.  We do have a future feature request filed for it, so maybe someday.  We also have a future feature request for vertical orientation with document tabs filed.

There are a few options which you might want to take advantage of to make the single row of tabs more compact and useful:

I believe that "Hide known file extensions" is off by default.  It kind of runs counter to normal coder's instincts of wanting to see all the information, but if you are working in a Java project and nearly all the source files have the ".java" extension, is it really worth the space to have ".java" on every tab, you know what you are looking at without that.  I use this setting, and frankly, I seldom even notice that the file extensions are missing anymore.

I tend to prefer to sort Document tabs alphabetically so that it is easy to scan for an item, but you may want to consider using one of the "Most recent" sort orders so that files in your working set stay visible on the document tabs.

This is my personal opinion here, but I'd like to hear yours.  Why do you want multiple rows of document tabs?  Obviously to see the names of all the files you have open.  But does stacked tabs really give you the best presentation of a long list of open files?  Generally, I find them to be unintuitive and a bit difficult to scan visually, which leaves me spending too much time hunting for the file I want.

Finally, would you be happy with a compromise where moving the mouse over a certain icon (=) would display an overlay with all the files in multiple rows of tabs.  That way we do not consume extra space but you can see multiple rows when you want to.  Or is it a requirement to be able to see everything you have open at once, even when you are not actively looking to switch documents?
Title: Re: Display tabs on mutliple rows
Post by: jcelle on September 17, 2019, 01:24:05 PM
Thanks for your comments Dennis, these are valuable.

One of the option I didn't know off was "Hide known file extensions", a good one though there is a bug as "foo.v.php" remains as is and "foo.php" correctly becomes "foo" (extension is after the last dot I think).

Regarding the multiple rows compromise, I use this document-tab-list-buffers function, so there is not really any need to add something different I guess.

Being able to see all of the opened files at once on many rows would be of great help for me because in reality, I always have at most 5 files out of the view, so that would make sense to have them below. Of course I agree that having more than 2 rows of tabs might be confusing.

Wishing you all the best.