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Bug 190810 - add an option to only show editor tabs for the active project
Summary: add an option to only show editor tabs for the active project
Status: NEW
Alias: None
Product: platform
Classification: Unclassified
Component: Window System (show other bugs)
Version: 7.0
Hardware: All All
: P2 normal (vote)
Assignee: Stanislav Aubrecht
URL:
Keywords:
Depends on:
Blocks:
 
Reported: 2010-10-06 14:42 UTC by athompson
Modified: 2014-01-17 06:31 UTC (History)
3 users (show)

See Also:
Issue Type: ENHANCEMENT
Exception Reporter:


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Description athompson 2010-10-06 14:42:42 UTC
Often I wind up with many open editor tabs for several projects, and it's inconvenient to search through all the tabs to find the one I'm looking for.  It would be nice if only tabs for the currently selected project are shown; all the other tabs would be hidden.  Clicking on another project (or a file in another project) in the Projects/File windows would hide tabs from the previous project and show tabs for that project.  You get the idea.

Some considerations:
1. The drop-down list should probably still show all open files, maybe with files from the same project at the top.
2. Open files which belong to no project should (optionally) always remain visible.
3. Perhaps change the background color of open files in the Project/Files window to make it obvious they are open even when the tabs are hidden.
Comment 1 athompson 2010-10-06 14:44:27 UTC
Feel free to knock down the priority if you don't think it's as urgent as I do.
Comment 2 Marian Mirilovic 2010-10-12 12:41:36 UTC
Ondra, this is yours I guess...
Comment 3 Ondrej Langr 2010-11-10 13:32:37 UTC
Interesting idea. Implementing this change right away would probably bring us thousands of angry users, but the idea behind - allowing the user to narrow down the scope they're working in - has some advantages.  

I'm very interested in the motivation behind - why do you actually want not to see open files for other projects? What do you mean by "project"? (We can probably agree that if you have a java application and library and "Go To source" from application to the library, you very likely want the original file to remain open among others, so your request woudln't apply to  this case. However, if by "project" you mean a group of related "netbeans projects", which does not have any relation to other projects, then I understand the motivation, but am not sure that what you're suggesting is the best way to address this need.
Comment 4 athompson 2011-11-24 15:05:54 UTC
I'm not sure how I wound up as the assignee for this one.  I still think it's a very good idea; I tried using the Project Groups thing and there's too much work involved. As far as potential angry users, you can turn the option off by default, or better yet have a "filter" button in the tab bar which makes it obvious what's going on.
Comment 5 athompson 2011-11-24 15:18:59 UTC
(In reply to comment #3)
> I'm very interested in the motivation behind - why do you actually want not to
> see open files for other projects? What do you mean by "project"? (We can
> probably agree that if you have a java application and library and "Go To
> source" from application to the library, you very likely want the original file
> to remain open among others, so your request woudln't apply to  this case.
> However, if by "project" you mean a group of related "netbeans projects", which
> does not have any relation to other projects, then I understand the motivation,
> but am not sure that what you're suggesting is the best way to address this
> need.

Good points.  I was thinking it would hide other tabs only if you click on the project in the project window.  It wouldn't hide other tabs if you opened or selected a file in another project through some other mechanism.  I like this method because it requires no effort by the user to maintain and it's reasonably intuitive once you know what's going on.
Comment 6 athompson 2011-11-24 16:11:01 UTC
To address your point WRT the "navigate to source" dilemma, why not handle it with "tab groups" like browsers, except instead of manually having to create a tab group, each project automatically has one?  The semantics could be as follows:

- if a file is opened by clicking on a file in Project X in the Project view, the new tab is placed in the tab group for Project X
- if a file is opened through some other means such as "navigate to source" or "File|Open File", the new tab is placed in the "active" tab group (corresponds to active project?)
- closing a file removes it from the active tab group, or if all tabs are being shown, all tab groups

The whole "tab group" thing should be automatic and invisible to the user.
Comment 7 athompson 2011-11-24 16:16:01 UTC
With tab groups you could do other cool stuff, even if the user chooses to display all tabs.  For example,  you could dim tabs that aren't relevant to the project at hand, or color each tab according to their project.
Comment 8 athompson 2013-04-05 20:25:18 UTC
The recent improvements to tabs make this much more feasible...
Comment 9 kobusbeets 2014-01-16 08:08:11 UTC
(In reply to athompson from comment #6)
> To address your point WRT the "navigate to source" dilemma, why not handle
> it with "tab groups" like browsers, except instead of manually having to
> create a tab group, each project automatically has one?  The semantics could
> be as follows:
> 
> - if a file is opened by clicking on a file in Project X in the Project
> view, the new tab is placed in the tab group for Project X
> - if a file is opened through some other means such as "navigate to source"
> or "File|Open File", the new tab is placed in the "active" tab group
> (corresponds to active project?)
> - closing a file removes it from the active tab group, or if all tabs are
> being shown, all tab groups
> 
> The whole "tab group" thing should be automatic and invisible to the user.

When I opened NetBeans this morning seeing two open tabs from a project I worked on yesterday I though that it would be great to temporarily "hide" those two tabs so that I can work on another project and when I'm finished with that I would close them and continue where I left off with yesterday's project by "displaying" them again.

I wanted to post a new thread but found this one which already addresses the thing I was thinking of. I will vote for this as a new UI enhancement as it would make things much more organized. I like your idea of using tabbed groups. I am currently downloading NetBeans 8 beta to see what changes occurred in this regard. I really hope that some changes would be made in regards with the tabs because I don't like too many open tabs while working on different projects at the same time. By grouping the tabs it would make managing projects and working on them much easier and fun of course.
Comment 10 markiewb 2014-01-16 08:28:46 UTC
(In reply to kobusbeets from comment #9)
> When I opened NetBeans this morning seeing two open tabs from a project I
> worked on yesterday I though that it would be great to temporarily "hide"
> those two tabs so that I can work on another project and when I'm finished
> with that I would close them and continue where I left off with yesterday's
> project by "displaying" them again.
> 
> I wanted to post a new thread but found this one which already addresses the
> thing I was thinking of. I will vote for this as a new UI enhancement as it
> would make things much more organized. I like your idea of using tabbed
> groups. I am currently downloading NetBeans 8 beta to see what changes
> occurred in this regard. I really hope that some changes would be made in
> regards with the tabs because I don't like too many open tabs while working
> on different projects at the same time. By grouping the tabs it would make
> managing projects and working on them much easier and fun of course.

Did you try to use the group tabs by project option introduced since 7.4?

http://benkiew.wordpress.com/2013/03/04/netbeans-ide-improved-documents-tabs-in-nightly-builds/
Comment 11 kobusbeets 2014-01-16 09:55:34 UTC
(In reply to markiewb from comment #10)
> (In reply to kobusbeets from comment #9)
> > When I opened NetBeans this morning seeing two open tabs from a project I
> > worked on yesterday I though that it would be great to temporarily "hide"
> > those two tabs so that I can work on another project and when I'm finished
> > with that I would close them and continue where I left off with yesterday's
> > project by "displaying" them again.
> > 
> > I wanted to post a new thread but found this one which already addresses the
> > thing I was thinking of. I will vote for this as a new UI enhancement as it
> > would make things much more organized. I like your idea of using tabbed
> > groups. I am currently downloading NetBeans 8 beta to see what changes
> > occurred in this regard. I really hope that some changes would be made in
> > regards with the tabs because I don't like too many open tabs while working
> > on different projects at the same time. By grouping the tabs it would make
> > managing projects and working on them much easier and fun of course.
> 
> Did you try to use the group tabs by project option introduced since 7.4?
> 
> http://benkiew.wordpress.com/2013/03/04/netbeans-ide-improved-documents-tabs-
> in-nightly-builds/

I have checked it out this morning and it works for now. I would however like it more if tabs displayed based on the current selected project. That would make things look less messy. Thank you for the link though. It was helpful.
Comment 12 athompson 2014-01-17 06:31:42 UTC
Hey kobusbeets,

The "Project Groups" feature can do something sort of similar, so you might want to check it out. The reason it hasn't achieved any popularity with users (and why I prefer this approach) is because the current implementation requires far too much user effort; everything must be done manually.