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Will Tabbed Windows Be the Next Big Thing?
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."
Why is this a big deal?
Fluxbox (and probably something else before *box) had tab grouping windows long time ago.
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 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.
"I zero-index my hamsters" - Willtor (147206)
The point is that we want to group windows by task, not by application. Let's say I'm working on a web application, so I have a window showing the contents of the project folder, a text editor, and a browser to test the application. At the same time (where "same time" doesn't mean that I do two things at once, but that I share my time between several activities over a range of many days), I'm writing a C program, so I have another editor window (or maybe an IDE), another project folder, a terminal with man pages, more browser windows for documentation, and so on.
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.
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.
There's a nice walk through of some of the KDE 4.4 additions in this YouTube clip. The Window Grouping preview starts at 4:28 into the show.
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.