some surprisingly lacking features

Post by **evands** » Thu Mar 03, 2005 4:38 pm

Tipo 61 wrote:Ha, you are right, point taken.

*hits Safari with a stick*

Edit: After thinking about it, Safari's tabs are also near the text input field.

*apologizes to Safari for hitting him with a stick*

Yup - Safari's tabs at the top are good where they are for the same reason Adium's tabs at the bottom are good where they are.

Post by **Catfish_Man** » Thu Mar 03, 2005 4:57 pm

evands wrote:
Tipo 61 wrote:I don't know if it would be a pain to implement, but i think an option to put the tabs anywhere on a window, (i.e. top, bottom, left, right), would be pretty helpful. Safari uses it's tabs across the top of the window, and it looks pretty good. Since putting them across the top is what Apple seems to do, having an option to put them there might satisfy some of the users, that have the opinion that Adium is not OS X like.
Apple in adding tabs to iChat is putting them at the bottom, I believe?

The tabs make sense at the bottom, where your input focus is normally (with the text entry field).

I agree. The top tabs in my screenshot were for a file browser, where it made more sense at the top.

air__devil · Post by **air__devil** » Thu Mar 03, 2005 5:27 pm

Tipo 61 wrote:Ha, you are right, point taken.

*hits Safari with a stick*

Edit: After thinking about it, Safari's tabs are also near the text input field.

*apologizes to Safari for hitting him with a stick*

You best apologize. Hit yourself with a stick now.

Keep in mind that just about ever tabbed interface is right below (or very close to) the text input fields. In Safari's case, they are located right under the bookmark bar, which seems to be more important than the address field. I believe I am right in assuming people open multiple bookmarks in tabs more often than physically typing in the URL.

vernies_garden · Post by **vernies_garden** » Fri Mar 04, 2005 3:38 am

i understand your point of view on putting the tabs near the text field but considering the curser automatically appears in the text feild when you click a tab it doesnt matter the relationship in distance, click a tab then type, just imagine how irritating it would be if you had to click on the text field after each time you changed tabs... so in that why can't the ones of us that would like a more customizable interface be shuned with no drawers or tab re-arrangement

another thought on tabs would be tab layers, incase you were to have too many tabs and they all get small enough where you didnt know who you were clicking on? have it were after so many tabs it starts another row

troplin · Post by **troplin** » Fri Mar 04, 2005 9:27 pm

so why not ability to move the input line on top? (ok, it's not consistent with the messages going from top to bottom... so lets write from bottom to top)
wow that would be fancy with the input line on the side

and obviously then we needed new message style that expand horizontally *muahaha*

dchoby98 · Post by **dchoby98** » Sat Mar 05, 2005 2:24 am

vernies_garden wrote:another thought on tabs would be tab layers, incase you were to have too many tabs and they all get small enough where you didnt know who you were clicking on? have it were after so many tabs it starts another row

This is used often in Windows apps, and it always seems to be horribly done. The main problem is: when you click on a tab, the "layer" it's in has to move as well. So, your tabs are constantly being rearranged. I highly suggest using the "Sort into windows by Groups" option to make life a bit easier for you.

Post by **The_Tick** » Sat Mar 05, 2005 3:45 am

vernies_garden wrote:i understand your point of view on putting the tabs near the text field but considering the curser automatically appears in the text feild when you click a tab it doesnt matter the relationship in distance, click a tab then type, just imagine how irritating it would be if you had to click on the text field after each time you changed tabs

This would be an excellent argument if it behaved this way. I just tested. Click one tab, and the text is in the text entry field. Do it in another, it does the same thing.

dchoby98 · Post by **dchoby98** » Sat Mar 05, 2005 4:52 am

That's exactly what vernies_garden was saying, Tick.

Tempest · Post by **Tempest** » Mon Mar 07, 2005 7:58 am

What is the general attitude toward adding an option for a drawer? Or possibly tabs which behave as they do currently but can be skinned along with message styles?

Post by **The_Tick** » Mon Mar 07, 2005 8:14 am

Tab skinning is something that I cannot see adium providing.

Drawer might happen, but don't place any bets.

vernies_garden · Post by **vernies_garden** » Mon Mar 07, 2005 9:59 am

i really don't see why all the negative vibe towards a drawer or skins, i personally like them alot and if so many other messengers are adopting drawers and skins then why not adium? obviously by adding such features you can only gain popularity, for the people that dont like them dont have to use them but for those of us that do can enjoy them. isn't the spirit of mac is to create? and who out there is like me and grows restless staring at the same ol messenger day in and day out? that's why just about every app for any other operating system has skins.. people like to personalize. and from all the other amazing features adium offers why not give us those few that should be standard.

Son of a Preacher Man · Mon Mar 07, 2005 10:24 am

You don't think Adium is customisable enough?! But, you can change almost every aspect of it... certainly more so than any other messenger app (to my knowledge).

If you sense a "negative vibe" towards these things (I don't think there is one - perhaps more a feeling that new features are more important than reinventing the wheel?) then it's only because people are used to things as they are, or, in the case of the devs, have deliberately chosen to do things this way after long discussion. I find tabs to be a far better than a drawer, personally. I like the Adium way of doing things.

vernies_garden · Post by **vernies_garden** » Mon Mar 07, 2005 2:30 pm

maybe "negative vibe" was too strong of words but i'm also not saying that adium is a bad app, its really amazing, i'm just saying why are those so called "common" features not included? just because you have an option for a drawar doesnt mean you have to use it... hence it being an "option" if it's to be a fully customizable interface it must be fully customizable even including features you dont like cause there's some of us that do like them no matter how mundane they may be.

thejokell · Post by **thejokell** » Mon Mar 07, 2005 3:13 pm

I'm one of the people who has a "negative vibe" towards drawers. Why? They suck. They're simply not meant to hold the information needed to replace tabs (at least according to the HIG). It also looks like they're on the way out. One of the major apps to still use a drawer in OS X is Mail.app, and it will lose it in 10.4.

The last time the discussion came up the devs were against the drawers as well.

just because you have an option for a drawar doesnt mean you have to use it

Why add unnecessary bloat? There's lots of things that *could* be added to Adium, that doesn't make it a good idea.

Post by **The_Tick** » Mon Mar 07, 2005 3:34 pm

The reason the tabs will not be skinned is that they are cocoa widgets/whatever. There are applications which do allow you to skin them.

The reason I said that a drawer might happen but to not hold your breath is because, for the most part, we all really just like tabs.

eevyl · Post by **eevyl** » Mon Mar 07, 2005 4:09 pm

Each time someone says "it wouldn't be that hard to implement really" "it should come as an option, everybody does" "why not include more customizability, it sure doesn't hurt anybody as an option" or something like that, I know for sure a developer dies of Mountain Dew intoxication (usually after 72 hours+ of coding those "easy" things).

Post by **The_Tick** » Mon Mar 07, 2005 4:14 pm

eevyl wrote:Each time someone says "it wouldn't be that hard to implement really" "it should come as an option, everybody does" "why not include more customizability, it sure doesn't hurt anybody as an option" or something like that, I know for sure a developer dies of Mountain Dew intoxication (usually after 72 hours+ of coding those "easy" things).

cooooooooooooooddddeeee REEEEEDDD!!!

And usually it's longer than that, first they have to think about it for a while, and figure out the best way to do things. Probably takes more than a week, easy.

Post by **evands** » Mon Mar 07, 2005 6:32 pm

eevyl wrote:Each time someone says "it wouldn't be that hard to implement really" "it should come as an option, everybody does" "why not include more customizability, it sure doesn't hurt anybody as an option" or something like that, I know for sure a developer dies of Mountain Dew intoxication (usually after 72 hours+ of coding those "easy" things).

I've lost several good friends to the Dew. Never underestimate the falsity of caffeine awareness.

Post by **Catfish_Man** » Mon Mar 07, 2005 7:37 pm

Just Say No®

(especially me. A can of Mountain Dew does weird things to me)

As for tab skinning... I'm pretty sure there are a few images in the bundle that could be tweaked, although with what results I'm not sure. I'll leave it to some adventurous user to find them.