Feature Request: Alter design of document tabs

[mikeindevon]

Directly above the document window in Photo are tabs showing the document file name.  These tabs extend the full width of the window and their length is determined by the number of tabs.  In Photoshop these tabs are of fixed length irrewspective of the number of open ducuments.  I find the Photoshop layout much easier to use because the tabs don't move about when you open or close documents.

 

 

[Fritz_H]

@mikeindevon

You are right - I don´t know the UI-Design of Photoshop but Tabs like every modern WebBrowser offers, would be far more intuitive/useful..

(BTW: one of the many usability-issues of the Affinity-Products... <sigh> )

[Pšenda]

2 hours ago, mikeindevon said:

These tabs extend the full width of the window and their length is determined by the number of tabs.

This method allows the complete display of long file names, if at all possible. Shortening tab to a certain length then in many cases unnecessarily truncates the long file name, which thus becomes unreadable.

2 hours ago, mikeindevon said:

Photoshop these tabs are of fixed length

Rather than "fixed" the width of tabs with unreadable file names, I would prefer to set the constant width according to the current length of the file name - not dividing the free space, as it is done now.

2 hours ago, mikeindevon said:

because the tabs don't move about when you open or close documents.

Even if the file is closed at the beginning of the list, do the tabs not change and move?

[fde101]

17 hours ago, Pšenda said:

constant width according to the current length of the file name

That's great until the filenames are so long that the tabs won't all fit in the width of the window.  Longer tabs means more scrolling.

I agree that sizing them based on the length of the filename is in general a good idea, but there needs to be a limit as well, and shortening them as more tabs are added helps to reduce scrolling when the names get longer and more tabs are opened, which some of us may prefer.

[Move Along People]

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[harrym]

I like how the tab sizing works as is.

Don't agree with changing the colour of the active tab, adding a white/black, depending on app scheme selected, accentuation line to the top edge of the tab would do the job and be less distracting.

I'm sure this has been discussed before.

 

[fde101]

18 hours ago, harrym said:

I'm sure this has been discussed before.

It definitely has.  There is a reason that professional UIs are predominantly neutral gray: it reduces how much the color throws off your perception of the colors in the actual document.

Professional colorists working on video projects for major broadcast networks may need to work in rooms with walls that are painted using a very expensive pigment-free neutral gray paint so that the light (coming from carefully designed fixtures/bulbs) reflecting off those walls does not get tinted before hitting the display that they are using to judge their color choices.  While many of us won't be taking things to quite that extreme, having too much color in the surrounding UI is a rather obvious thing that can be avoided without significant cost in order to reduce bad influence on those decisions.  Shades of color/gray can also throw off your perception, so a relatively low contrast level is also desirable in a professional UI, at least to the point where it does not start to impact usability.

[Pšenda]

1 hour ago, fde101 said:

There is a reason that professional UIs are predominantly neutral gray: it reduces how much the color throws off your perception of the colors in the actual document.

Hi @fde101, just out of curiosity - as you perceive the fact, that even if you select monochrome/gray icons, part of the UI still remains colored.

  

Wouldn't it be better and more correct for this option to change the discoloration of all UI elements?

[fde101]

1 hour ago, Pšenda said:

Wouldn't it be better and more correct for this option to change the discoloration of all UI elements?

Small amounts of color like that probably won't make a massive difference, and the color can help make them more easily recognized in some cases.  I do like a small amount of color there as opposed to the other provided option (monochromatic iconography as per your screenshot on the right), but I would actually prefer many of them (along with the controls) to have small amounts of color, but to be less saturated than they are.

Granted that the tabs won't be as significant either this than the entire frame of the window, but they also (particularly if rulers are hidden) can be closer to parts of the document than are some of the other UI elements which tend to have more of a frame/border around them.

In fact, with the rulers hidden, the tabs are right up against the document - the icons and the like are not and at least have some of the gray between them and the document.

[harrym]

On 11/26/2020 at 6:16 PM, fde101 said:

Small amounts of color like that probably won't make a massive difference, and the color can help make them more easily recognized in some cases.  I do like a small amount of color there as opposed to the other provided option (monochromatic iconography as per your screenshot on the right), but I would actually prefer many of them (along with the controls) to have small amounts of color, but to be less saturated than they are.

Granted that the tabs won't be as significant either this than the entire frame of the window, but they also (particularly if rulers are hidden) can be closer to parts of the document than are some of the other UI elements which tend to have more of a frame/border around them.

In fact, with the rulers hidden, the tabs are right up against the document - the icons and the like are not and at least have some of the gray between them and the document.

Plus they would typically be on a different monitor for the type of artists you describe in your previous post.