Re: Gtk tabs in emacs, new branch.

[David De La Harpe Golden]

Jan Djärv wrote:
> 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.

Hmm. Well, switching a "single window"* between buffers toto.c and 
toto.h might be something I'd rather use (yes, presently hypothetical) 
interior split-tab tabs, attached directly to the window in question.

This is not unusual - Note how eclipse has tab bars on multiple panes, 
and switching the main editor pane between files is done with the tab 
bar most directly attached to it:

http://www.eclipse.org/screenshots/images/FortranIde-RedFlag_Linux.png

(* actually in the implementation I envisage it'd be switching /between 
two emacs windows/ formed from a "split" on the "tab" axis, but at this 
level of the discussion that's a detail).

My reservations about window-configurations-as-thing-tab-switches also
turn out to apply:

See, thinking about it, switching window configurations as a whole could 
IMO be more like switching "perspectives" in eclipse (window 
configurations do currently encapsulate the buffer being shown in each 
window, and assuming split-tabbed existed would also record tab 
arrangement).

So a "debug" window configuration may have (possibly tabbed) windows 
open on buffers with your source, compilation outputs, a gdb window 
etc., while a "edit java" window configuration has windows with your 
source, a directory tree browser, doc and completion windows etc.

Now, a tab bar is probably still a vaguely reasonable UI for switching 
between a small number of perspectives, though not actually the UI 
eclipse uses (see the "Debug" button in the upper right of Fig.1 
screenshot here:

http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/library/os-ecbug/#N10089
)