Re: Gtk tabs in emacs, new branch.

[Jan Djärv]

Stefan Monnier skrev:
> > > > Are there any concrete examples of other uses?
> > > I can imagine switching the buffer of one of the windows (in an ECB-style
> > > frame, for example).
> > Isn't that a window configuration?  I don't get it.
>
> Not quite: e,g. you can create a new tab for "toto.c", switch to toto.h,
> then resize some windows, then select the "toto.c" tab and it will
> switch the buffer to toto.c without reverting the window sizes.

Ok, that might be useful.

> > > In mpc.el I could imagine using it to switch
> > > between various selections.
> > I don't know what mpc.el is, so the statements has no meaning.
>
> It's emacs/lisp/mpc.el (new in Emacs-23.2), a front end (client) for the
> Music Player Daemon.  So think of it as switch between different
> selections in Rhythmbox's browser.

Well, I don't use Rhythmbox either, so ... :-)

> > > > But implementation for the primary use case (window configurations)
> > > > should not have to suffer because of other uses.
> > > I still don't understand what kind of suffering you're referring to.
> > > If you could describe more concretely (e.g. what kind of undesirable
> > > user-behavior could happen in which case and why).
>
> > The most obvious thing is flickering.  When the user clicks on the tab Gtk+
> > switches tab, there is nothing you can do about that.
>
> I think we need to define "tab" here.  For me a "tab" is a little
> rectangle on the screen with a label.  The actions on this tab are
> usually linked to switching the content of an X window that's
> drawn underneath.
> > From what you write I get the impression that your notion of a "tab"
> includes not just the tab itself but also the window underneath.

It is not my notion, it is Gtk+.

> > Depending on what was drawn in that widget previously, something else
> > is shown than what was shown in the old wiindows before.
>
> If I understand correctly, that means that Gtk tabs have a built-in
> semantics of "switch the window underneath the tabbar".
> That's obviously too restrictive for the kinds of use cases I suggest,
> so we'd have to hack around it, e.g. by creating a dummy 0-pixel high
> X-window where Gtk can "switch tabs" at its heart content without
> bothering us.

I'm looking into that now.  There is that damned border though...

        Jan D.