https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/show_bug.cgi?id=37134
--- Comment #123 from golemus <[email protected]> --- Lack of this feature is and remains largest weakness of LibreOffice if you ask me. I have attempted to solve it with 3rd party addon in Windows (called WindowTabs), but it is "gum tweak" user experience where you see title of document twice (1st on Libre titlebar and 2nd on the tab), although for optimal user experience you should see it only once (just like in browsers). The ONLY app which keeps me getting rid of it is Libre, all of the rest of my important apps have implemented tabs ages ago. Most logical place (in my layout) is replacement of title bar with tabbed docs bar. If its hard to implement otherwise, maybe it could be some sort of plugin or extension...? > Tabs have at least the following downsides, beyond subjective personal > preference: > > * They take up space - either horizontal or vertical, depending on which > kind of tabs is used. Or don't if they are in title bar. > * They add another aspect of complexity to our UI - for users It could be optional feature which is disabled as default and only those who want it enable it. > * They would complicate the implementation of our UI, likely requiring more > work from developers and whoever does QA for various features - not just > upfront, but in perpetuity, making sure that UI changes don't break in the > interaction with tabs. That is true but if you have learned to work with tab switching e.g. in web browsers or Windows file explorer, lack of them makes your workflow slower. This is especially true for new users who don't have the knowledge or skills for efficient usage of multitasking and switching of windows. > Using a browser can be thought of more as an immersive and semi-passive > experience, at least in the sense of not typing and pressing buttons and > manipulating controls and such - which is almost the opposite of authoring a > document. Have you thought that how many percentage of LibreOffice usage is authoring and how many is browsing documents? For me it is maybe 80-90% browsing and 10-20% authoring. And when I am authoring often large portion of work is copy pasting material between different documents which could make it much simpler if you could put them beside each other as tabs. > > This would truly make a killer-feature and > > hugely improve usability and productivity. > > How so? If usability testing were done for person who is unfamiliar with Libre I am pretty certain their productivity would be higher with tabbed interface. Of course I am not assuming that FOSS app would have much of usability testing. > > This would be great for productivity. > > In what way? Min. hundreds of millions of people are familiar with Chromium tabbed user interface and would almost certainly have lower barrier to learn how to create new documents and switch between them. > > > The current design of LibreOffice consists of a title bar that has nothing > > but the filename. > > No, that is _not_ part of the design of LibreOffice. A title bar is > something that the desktop environment window manager may, or may not, place > on top of the window. It is not for us to meddle with. if NOT TitleBarExists() then DisableTabbedDocs() Could LibreOffice query from OS presence of title bar and when it is not present then automatically disable the TabbedDocs UI....? > > 2) Some users do not like tabs to switch between files. Therefore, if this > > feature is to be implemented, it should be optional. > > IIANM, making a 'heavy' UI feature like tab-vs-window per document optional > means quite a bit of extra work going forward. Which raises the bar for > adding this feature even further. Nevertheless I agree with this suggestion. Some power users are accustomed of using OS multitasker for switching between windowed documents and might see TabbedDocs unnecessary. For others it could be lifesaver. > the extra-clutter when you're _inside_ LibreOffice? For comparison, I'm > thinking of, say, PDF viewers with tabs, like Sumatra. I feel a stronger > sense of clutter from its tab bar than from having more PDF viewer windows. Sumatras Tab bar is not visually best implementation. It is actually a bit confusing as there are no black borders around the tabs to make them more distinctive. But of course for someone who has workflow that does not need tabs might wish some other UI elements than tabs to be there. > > Tabs would solve this problem by allowing me to switch between documents by > > clicking on the tabs, drag and drop tabs to reorder them, close tabs with a > > single click, or open new tabs with a keyboard shortcut. > > That's all generally true for windows too. Well, ok, some of that may depend > on your window manager configuration I suppose. One workflow booster that I have become dependent on which I use on all apps that support it is double clicking tab to close. If tabs are ever implemented it could be workflow booster. But even tabs with just cross sign to close is better than nothing. And I am here referring more to workflow where you have large amount of docs or sheets on your computer, open one of them to check out if it contains what you want and then close it and open the next one. > (In reply to golemus from comment #107) > > The only program left that I use on regular basis that does not have tabs is > > Libreoffice. > > Inkscape doesn't use tabs for documents. Audacity doesn't use tabs for > documents. Microsoft Office doesn't use tabs for documents. Xournal++ > doesn't use tabs for documents. Many PDF viewers don't use tabs for > documents; although, to be fair, editors shouldn't really count. But, even > having said that - it's true that more editor-type applications use tabs > than fail to use them. I know there are many that don't yet, but document/sheet editor such as Libre is much more vital program. Ps. I think OnlyOffice has them. Don't understand either why MS is also behind era in implementing them to Office. I recently switched from Audacity to OcenAudio. Although main reason for that was not UI (but performance). I noticed that OcenAudio has one click solution to switch between audio files (which reminds vertical tabs). Not sure if it was also in Audacity though. I'd prefer both of them having tabs in TitleBar but for me it is not large issue as I open audio file with them only when I need to see waveform or edit them (which is much more rarely than needs to edit with libre) and do main audio browsing with another app (Foobar2000). Most of PDF-viewers that I have used do have them. -- You are receiving this mail because: You are the assignee for the bug.
