Tabs in TC60 changes everything, new design necessary?

[white]

With tabs in Total Commander 6.0 we have a whole new concept of Total Commander. First there was Total Commander, an application that always showed two windows, both displaying the contents of a folder (directory). Now there is Total Commander with tabs, an application that can create, open and save numerous tab windows.

Because of this new concept I think it has become necessary to redesign some functions of Total Commander. The design of functions like Quick view, Tree view and Search results, do not make much sense anymore. Because Total Commander now can have multiple windows instead of only two, these functions can have there own window. There is no need to temporarily use one of the file windows for these functions.

Redesigning these functions means that Total Commander will function differently than before. But I am afraid that if too much is sticked to the old ways, in future, Total Commander could become a monster.


Possible new design

Total Commander could be more like so many applications and have a menu option File/New (CTRL+N) to create a new window, a menu option File/Open (CTRL+O) to open a folder in a window and a menu option Window which can be used to switch from one window to another.

A word about the term 'tab'. In Total Commander the word 'tab' is often used to indicate a tab window. I don't particularly like this. A tab is only the projection from a tab window and not the window itself. So I think you should call it 'window' or even 'page' rather than 'tab'. Note that if there is a menu opion Window to switch between windows, the tabs don't need to be visible. Like it was in so many applications before tabs were commonly used and like it is now as an option in many applications with tab windows.

Quick view could work like this. When Quick view is activated a new window is created in the opposite panel with a tab labeled '[Quick view]'. Quick view can only(!) be turned off the following ways:
1 the same way it is started
2 by double clicking the tab of the Quick view window
3 by pressing CTRL+W while the Quick view window has focus
4 by selecting another view mode (like Tree view, see below)
The Quick view window is visible at all times while Quick view is active (either in the left or the right panel).
There can be only one Quick view window at all times and only while Quick view is active.
When a tab in the same panel as the Quick view tab is clicked, the Quick view window moves to the other panel (e.g. from left to right panel), while the contents of the clicked tab window is displayed in the other panel.
When you click a drive button to be displayed in the left panel while the Quick view window is in the left panel, this either does not work, or this creates a new window for the drive in the left panel while the Quick view window is moved from left to right.

Tree view could be designed exactly the same as described above for Quick view.

Feeding search results to a window could work like this. When search results are fed to a window a new window with a tab labeled '[Search results]' is created.
This window can not be used to display folders.
There can be more than one Search results window.
When you click a drive button to be displayed in the left panel while a Search result window is in the left panel, this either does not work, or this creates a new window for the drive in the left panel.


Some technical suggestions for a future Total Commander with a new design.

* menu Window option to change from one window to antoher
* CTRL+N for new window
* CTRL+SHIFT+N for new duplicate window (like in opera)
* CTRL+T for tree view
* when a new window is created it shows a certain home folder or prompts for a folder. The window should have no history of visited folders yet.
* CTRL+O prompts for a new folder (I have CTRL+O linked to cm_editpath)
* "Show directory tabs" in Layout options should not disable the use of mutiple windows. (The use of multiple windows should never be disabled because this is the new concept of Total Commander)
* option "open newly created windows in foreground" to always give focus to newly created windows (except for Quick view). Instead of the option "Ctrl+Up opens new Tab in foreground" which is only for new windows created by CTRL+UP.


These are my thoughts. What are yours?


Edited: minor type error

[wanderer]

Well white, some of your ideas seem interesting, i don't think you haven't considered everything though.

First of all, about the "'window' or even 'page' rather than 'tab'" idea, I'll just say i believe the terminology is right as is.

Second, you say "There can be only one Quick view window at all times and only while Quick view is active.", a proposal i don't agree with. The new multiple tabs design gives you the ability to have multiple Quickview and Search windows so why throw it away? Why cripple the purposes tabs can serve? (2Christian: wish for multiple QickView and SearchResult windows please )

You also said "When Quick view is activated a new window is created in the opposite panel with a tab labeled '[Quick view]'" and you propose it remains persistent, not closed when you switch tabs. I agree with that with the following exception: what happens if you want to have more than one quickview or search-result tabs per window? I believe it would be better to have a "[QV: filename]" for quickview or "[SR: filename]" for search results.

As for the rest:
* CTRL+N, CTRL+SHIFT+N : Personally I don't believe they're necessary but it's up to Christian to decide that.
* CTRL+T for tree view : Well, since CTRL+T is used to open a new tab, i guess we'll have to live with CTRL+F8 for treeview.
* when a new window is created it shows a certain home folder or prompts for a folder. : Why prompting? Both your way and what happes now, require you select the path you want to go to. What's the difference between prompting when opening a new tab and just opening the tab and then let you go to the folder you want?
* "Show directory tabs" in Layout options should not disable... : You keep forgetting there are people out there who think differently than you. They may find the tabs feature confusing or don't like it for their reasons. Why restrict them to a certain way of working? What's the point? Personally, I don't like the "You'll do it my way or not at all" philosophy.

My 2 cents.

[white]

First of all, about the "'window' or even 'page' rather than 'tab'" idea, I'll just say i believe the terminology is right as is.

Could you give me an example of a program (besides Total Commander) which can open and close multiple tab windows and uses the term 'tab' for more than just the tab, the projection from a window?

Second, you say "There can be only one Quick view window at all times and only while Quick view is active.", a proposal i don't agree with. The new multiple tabs design gives you the ability to have multiple Quickview and Search windows so why throw it away? Why cripple the purposes tabs can serve? (2Christian: wish for multiple QickView and SearchResult windows please )

If you read it again you might notice I stated: "There can be more than one Search results window."
Furthermore I do not want to cripple the purposes tabs can serve. Quite the opposite I am suggesting to fully benefit from them.

You also said "When Quick view is activated a new window is created in the opposite panel with a tab labeled '[Quick view]'" and you propose it remains persistent, not closed when you switch tabs. I agree with that with the following exception: what happens if you want to have more than one quickview or search-result tabs per window? I believe it would be better to have a "[QV: filename]" for quickview or "[SR: filename]" for search results.

If you agree with that then you also want the Quick view function to be redesigned.
About your suggestion to have multiple Quick view windows with tabs labeled "[QV: filename]". I think this only makes sense when each Quick view window is connected to a fixed window at the other panel. So when you click on the tab of a Quick view window it brings up the corresponding window in the other panel. This is an interesting possibility of a new design.

* "Show directory tabs" in Layout options should not disable... : You keep forgetting there are people out there who think differently than you. They may find the tabs feature confusing or don't like it for their reasons. Why restrict them to a certain way of working? What's the point? Personally, I don't like the "You'll do it my way or not at all" philosophy.

When you add more and more to a program, there comes a point where the program needs redesigning. Especially when the concept of the program changes. Christian Ghisler added tab windows to Total Commander with minimal changes to the design. Which raises my concern about the future of Total Commander. It is admirable that he wanted to give us the benefits of the tab windows already, but redesigning is necessary. Why do you think there is so much discussion going on concerning the tab windows. And I think this is only the beginning. I think the design of Total Commander should be looked over from top to bottom. Maybe the results will be to change very little, but it should be looked over anyway.

About your comments on my suggestions for a possible new design I would like to say that the possible new design I presented was merely meant to illustrate what a new design could look like. It was not meant as an "I want this and I want that" discussion.

[wanderer]

Could you give me an example of a program (besides Total Commander) which can open and close multiple tab windows and uses the term 'tab' for more than just the tab, the projection from a window?

Well, you said it yourself: "open and close multiple tab windows". The term "window" is too general to be used alone. Granted, the term "tab" means the tab control, not the window it contains, so perhaps another term is needed here. Can't think of anything right now except perhaps "tab window".

If you read it again you might notice I stated: "There can be more than one Search results window."
Furthermore I do not want to cripple the purposes tabs can serve. Quite the opposite I am suggesting to fully benefit from them.If you agree with that then you also want the Quick view function to be redesigned.

Ok, perhaps the "search results" part was my mistake. I was mislead by the "one Quickview window" you mentioned.

About your suggestion to have multiple Quick view windows with tabs labeled "[QV: filename]". I think this only makes sense when each Quick view window is connected to a fixed window at the other panel. So when you click on the tab of a Quick view window it brings up the corresponding window in the other panel. This is an interesting possibility of a new design.

As far as the Quickview though, here's an example of what i had in mind:
You open a quickview left tab-window from a selected file in a right tab-window. The quickview tab will be connected to the right tab-window it was opened from: when the user changes the selected file in the right tab-window, the quickview will display the contents of the new file but only if the QV tab-window is active (the selected-visible tab in the right window). If you wish, you will be able to lock the QV window. That would mean that you wish to always see the file that was selected at the time of the lock, nomatter what file is selected in the right tab-window. Probably it would be better and less complicated (development-wise) to disable QV tab unlocking, forcing you to close it when you don't need it any more.

When you add more and more to a program, there comes a point where the program needs redesigning.

I also believe TCmd needs some redesign, not only in the way it works but also in the way it looks. For instance, someone suggested in another thread to replace the drive combo-box with a menu, an idea i find very interesting. There are many things that could be done and i believe talking about them will help Christian to decide how to improve TCmd.

About your comments on my suggestions for a possible new design I would like to say that the possible new design I presented was merely meant to illustrate what a new design could look like. It was not meant as an "I want this and I want that" discussion.

Agreed. I think the spirit of most of the users of this forum is to discuss about ideas one believes will help improve TCmd and not to say "I want this and I want that".

[white]

Agreed. I think the spirit of most of the users of this forum is to discuss about ideas one believes will help improve TCmd and not to say "I want this and I want that".

I think this is where we hug

[wanderer]

I think this is where we hug