unity-design team mailing list archive

[Apoorva Sharma <appi2012@xxxxxxxxx>]

On Jul 7, 2010, at 6:10 PM, Sam Spilsbury <smspillaz@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> Why exactly do we want the WM to be handling tabs here? Trying to do
> tabbed applications within the window manager for the sake of having
> tabs is a huge waste of memory, especially when the application itself
> can already do tabs.
> 
Standardizing a tabbing system would save memory, since individual apps don't have to manage them, and so unnecessary code could be removed.

> It also does not make sense from a design perspective. the whole point
> of tabbed windows (as it is implemented in both Compiz and KWin) is to
> allow multiple /applications/ to be shoved into one window,
> applications which the user delegates themselves as related. Confusing
> documents and windows here doesn't help at all.

I agree. However, what do tabs in firfox, chrome, and nautilus do? They allow one to combine multiple windows into one. Thus, the current tabbing system used by compiz should be scrapped (at least to me, it provides no benefits by combining two applications into one window) and there should be a system where all windows are tabbed into one like Chrome does it. It saves space, allows apps to use less code, and provides a way to unify tab behavior across applications.

I hope that this alternate description helps.