Better use of tab titlebar space.

[superboy]

May I suggest to make better use of the space available in the tab titles in the titlebar? When you have a lot of tabs, there's so little space for words, so the real estate is very valuable, in a sense. I would like to add an option to delete the use of ellipsis (the "...") when a word doesn't fit in the tab. The ellipsis takes up way too much space; I'd rather show as much of the word as possible and cut the rest off.
Now, I feel Directory Opus does a good job in this area. let me describe how it handles this. First, the entire directory name is shown in the tab. if the tab has to be long, then it will be as long as it has to be to fit the entire name. Even though XY has the maximum tab width option, it doesn't really help when you have a lot of tabs, because it tries to fit them all on the titlebar. in Directory Opus, if the tabs don't fit (to show the whole name), there's a little button that appears on the side. When you click on the button, you will see a drop-down list that shows the names of the tabs that are could not fit in the bar. I feel this is a very good solution to the problem (it was my suggestion, in fact). So I suggest something similar to XY. The way it is right now, I have a bunch of tabs with one letter shown and ellipsis...that's not very good.
I've attached a screenshot of XY and also of Dopus, to show what I'm talking about. I hope it helps.

Here is how XYPlorer does it:

screenshot_20100623130326.png (35.44 KiB) Viewed 4709 times

here is how DOpus does it:

screenshot_20100623130534.png (67.67 KiB) Viewed 4709 times

[admin]

Yes, that would be an option. But what happens at the left end when you select a tab from the right end?

I'd prefer to add something like in Firefox in the long run: scroll-buttons at both ends.

[Forty-Two]

The drop-down list shows all non visible tabs - those above the divider are to the left of the visible tabs, those below the divider are to the right. No problem seeing the names of all the tabs.

XY - 24_06_2010 , 09_06_18.png (8.89 KiB) Viewed 4679 times

[Jibz]

The drop-down list shows all non visible tabs - those above the divider are to the left of the visible tabs, those below the divider are to the right.

That is rather clever.

I'd prefer to add something like in Firefox in the long run: scroll-buttons at both ends.

The scroll buttons in Firefox are not always much use if you have many tabs open (left or right to find the one you want? who knows), and Firefox has a menu button on the tab bar as well (all the way to the right).

Btw, I realize this is perhaps not the best first post on a forum, but since there is no General section or similar, there is really no suitable place to introduce oneself .

[Stefan]

The drop-down list shows all non visible tabs - ...

Best used with "Tools > Configuration > Tabs > [X] Always keep right end of tab bar empty"

[admin]

Maybe not everybody knows that you can right-click the empty space on the tab bar's right end to get a popup with all tabs names in full from where you can select a tab.

To keep the right end always empty use the setting shown in the screen shot:

[admin]

2 fools, same idea...

[Jibz]

Maybe not everybody knows that you can right-click the empty space on the tab bar's right end to get a popup with all tabs names in full from where you can select a tab.

I think a button might make it somewhat more obvious at least .

[Tom]

Speaking of Firefox, I use an add-on called Tab Mix Plus. This has an option under DISPLAY - TAB BAR, "When tabs don't fit width", and it has several options in a drop-down list:

scrollbar buttons, left, right, both sides

a multi-row option, with a settable number of rows.

Would this method be of use?

[admin]

Speaking of Firefox, I use an add-on called Tab Mix Plus. This has an option under DISPLAY - TAB BAR, "When tabs don't fit width", and it has several options in a drop-down list:

scrollbar buttons, left, right, both sides

a multi-row option, with a settable number of rows.

Would this method be of use?

Yes, but later.

[superboy]

Well, regarding multiple lines:
That was my initial instinct also, but when I posted about this same issue years ago in the DOpus forums, they talked me out of it and it made sense. Here is the discussion, it's probably worth a read:
Put overflowing tabs on multiple lines

i didn't know about the right-click thing, that is really nice! I guess it's not that big a deal to add buttons or not. The other thing to consider is do you want all the tabs to show up in the right click menu, or just the tabs that don't fit? There should at least be an indicator that tells you which tabs are visible or not.

But the first issue still remains: the efficient use of space within the tabs. Can we have an option to show the entire tab name without ellipsis, no large blank spaces, etc.?

[Tom]

Thanks for the links about multiple tab rows. Very interesting reading. I can see how too many extra rows would be a detriment to usability. Though I don't think two rows would be that bad.

[superboy]

Thanks for the links about multiple tab rows. Very interesting reading. I can see how too many extra rows would be a detriment to usability. Though I don't think two rows would be that bad.

Yes, two rows are fine, but the thing to think about is what is the best solution that covers all situations? And I think the drop down fits that requirement. But with the right click functionality already there, it's pretty much available. The only thing left would be to add an option to show all tabs, or just the ones not shown.

But with XY, my biggest issue is that currently the space on the tabs is not used as efficiently as can be. you have the left side reserved for the icon, then 99% of the time, the entire word doesn't fit, so when it doesn't fit, the ellipses is used which takes up over half the space. So you are left with "P..." for a folder that is named "PROGRAMS".

[superboy]

I don't want to turn this into a competition, but I feel it's constructive. The image below shows the amount of options available for tabs in DOpus. it would be great to get some of these in XY. I mean, DOpus is known for having loads of options. But XY does a lot of things better than DOpus, too. So, I guess I'm trying to say I'm a fan of both. I definitely like XY's author a lot more
Here's the image:

screenshot_20100625125905.png (51.15 KiB) Viewed 4579 times

[admin]

I agree that an option to not "ellipse" (is that a verb?) the tab caption would be fine. But there's a problem with this: what when the selected tab is somewhere off to the right? Not good. The selected tab should always be visible. But this means that the tabs should be able to scroll to the left, so that the visible tabs start with tab #5 for example, and tabs #1 to #4 are scrolled out of view. And this means all kinds of work and trouble... (for me) which does not fit into my current plans.

One might gain a little space by (optionally) using just one dot instead of three in the ellipses...