HIG: tabwidgets

Matt Rogers mattr at kde.org
Thu Mar 9 14:32:46 CET 2006


On Thursday 09 March 2006 02:15, Aaron J. Seigo wrote:
> hi all..
>
> first, some broken link status:
>
> 	 http://openusability.org/projects/kde-hig/
>
> links several times (as the project home page) to:
>
> 	http://www.kde.org/areas/guidelines/html/
>
> anyways... i want to talk about tab widgets in the new HIG and hopefully
> get some text in there.
>
> there are 5 areas that probably need to be covered, please comment:
>
> 0. When to use tabs
> 1. Where to place tabs in a window
> 2. Standard Actions
> 3. Context menus
> 4. Mouse interaction
>
> When to use tabs: ???
>
> something should probably be said about frames in tab widgets. in Qt4 we
> have proper control over this, which we didn't in Qt3. huzzah!
>
> Where to place tabs in a window: Where the common locus of attention is.
> This is usually the top of the window, except for command line and chat
> applications which tend to put new information at the bottom of the window
> and therefore keep the user's attention there. In such cases the tabs
> should appear at the bottom of the window.
>
> Standard Actions:
> The following actions should be available if it makes sense within the
> workflow of the application. For instance, while it makes sense to offer
> "Duplicate Tab" in a web browser, it doesn't in a chat application.
>
> Action		Shortcut		Required
> -------		---------------	-----------
> New Tab		Ctrl+Shift+N	Yes
> Detach Tab	Ctrl+Shift+D	No
> Duplicate Tab			No
> Reload Tab	F5		No
> Next Tab		Ctrl+Left_Arrow	Yes
> Previous Tab	Ctrl+Right_Arrow	Yes
>
> we'll want to define what the standard names for these are (e.g.
> tab_duplicate) but we'll need to wait for the xmlgui replacement to get
> into svn to know exactly how that stuff will work.
>
> Context Menus: this should be a description of the context menu including
> spots for customization. for instance:
>
> New Tab
> Reload Tab
> Detach Tab
> Duplicate Tab
> -----
> Other Tabs
> ----
> Close Tabs
>
> a question here is what to put in Other Tabs. in konsole it's "Switch To
> Tab", in konversation it's "Switch To" and in konqueror it's "Other Tabs"
> which includes actions that apply to all other tabs.

What about vertical tabs? Qt 4 provides those and i feel that we should at 
least say something about them, even if it is something like "vertical tabs 
are evil and should not be used"
--
Matt


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