unity-design team mailing list archive

[Paul Sladen <ubuntu@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Mon, 17 Jan 2011, Valeryan_24 wrote:
> "X" close buttons on tabs put to the left for the applications
> Firefox - Thunderbird - Libre Office - Empathy - Nautilus - Gedit - 
> Shutter...

Hello Xavier,

Whether to swap the tab cose buttons is a very interesting question,
it's one of those "what should X do in situation Y" type policy
questions where the technical implementation is likely to be easier
than deciding what should be done in the first place.

Dynamically placing the close buttons in application tabs develops
some interesting side-effects, all of which would need specifying and
working out first  For example taking Firefox, the tabs are drawn:

 [ Icon, Name...        Close ]

If you open several tabs and then close them again;  When there is
only one tab remaining then the Close button on it iis hidden from
view (it disappears completely).  If this tab close button was on the
left-hand side, there would either need to be a strange-looking gap,
or the tab title would need to be moved leftwards to fill the space.

	-Paul