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List:       kde-usability
Subject:    Re: Standar style for left tabs in KDE apps
From:       Dominik Haumann <dhdev () gmx ! de>
Date:       2006-11-25 10:20:19
Message-ID: 200611251120.19699.dhdev () gmx ! de
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On Friday 24 November 2006 08:23, Kåre Särs wrote:
> On Friday 24 November 2006 02:36, Iñaki wrote:
> > Hi, I observe that there are many KDE apps using left tabs, but in
> > different ways. Basically I see 3 kinds of left tabs style:

From a programmer's point of view:
The applications Kate, Kaffeine and Konqueror (and more) use the class 
KMultiTabBar in kdelibs/kutils/kmultitabbar*
KMultiTabBar provides several ways of appearance: Icons only, Always Icon 
with text etc. However, width is hardcoded as 24 pixel. So increasing the 
icon size will not work right now.

Amarok uses a forked KMultiTabBar, adjusted to their needs. The differences 
are: it stretches the buttons over the whole height and adds 
graphical "special effects" ;)

As Amarok has 5 or more tabs, all the tabs do not appear oversized - it 
looks ok. A Kate installation usually only has two tabs on the left, 
stretching them would look strange, wouldn't it?

Konqueror has so many icons that showing text does not fit into one 
tab-line, so it would break and use two lines (feature of KMultiTabBar). 
Having always two lines sounds like bad usability I fear, maybe having too 
much icons on this sidebar is a usability issue anyway?
M$ solves this by (a) not having all kind of sidebars like media players (*) 
and (b) putting everything into a (virtual) structure (root node is 
Desktop, then you have My Computer, Network Places and what not). The 
benefit of this approach is: You have horizontal text instead of vertical 
text, which increases readability I guess, and it is well defined (it is 
always the same on every computer).
This can be done by having a simple kio slave, see for example:
http://kde-apps.org/content/show.php?content=17800

(*) This is an interesting question: Do we really need things like an 
embedded media player in the sidebar?

[...]
> > I don't know if all KDE apps should use the same style, maybe it
> > depends a lot in the kind of application.
> > Anyway I think the 3 above examples could use the same style perfectly,
> > making a more solid look for KDE.
> >
> > IMHO the best solution is Amarok's style, because:
> >
> > - The size of each tab is fixed making easy to change between them.
> > (In Kaffeine is difficult to change between tabs because their height
> > changes everytime the user clicks in each tab and the text label
> > appears).
> >
> > - They take up all the height of the window. Imagine Kate or Kaffeine
> > tabs in a very high resolution monitor, the tabs would become too much
> > small.
>
> I have to object to this one (I like small icons and small fonts). What
> should be possible tho is to change the icon size.

KMultiTabBar issue.

> > - They are easier to use because they show the text every time.
> > (Kaffeine just shows the selected tab label, just in the moment the
> > user doesn't need to know about it; maybe the user would need the label
> > of non-selected tabs to imagine their function).
>
> Konqueror has the same type as Kaffeine, and I agree that it is not very
> helpfull if you do not know what the icon stands for. I think the reason
> is to save space, but usability wise it could be better. I like the way
> Amarock shortens the text string if the window is too small to fit the
> text, but with Kate's way to add more columns of tabs the  whole text is
> always visible. Maybe an option to enable disable the text should be
> available.

KMultiTabBar issue ;) In other words: KMultiTabBar for KDE4 still needs love 
and be ported to Qt4 only. Volunteers welcome :D

Greetings,
Dominik
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