Community

I really love the possibility to reorder tabs in version 5. But there are some oddities I believe to have discovered. (Edit: To be exact, I am referencing v5.03)

* If the tabs are shown in "stacked" mode and they are effectively stacked (more docs open than can be showed in one row), each time you click on a tab in row in the background (not the first row), this *single* tab is brought to the first row, swapping places with the tab in front of it. This effectively reorders the tabs, which should only happen when dragging tabs, but not when clicking them!
To illustrate what I mean:
Imagine you have 8 textfiles names 1.txt, 2.txt, ..., 8.txt. Open them all, make the Textpad window wide enough to show all tabs side by side in one row. Make sure the tabs are shown in "stacked" mode in the preferenced. Then make the window width smaller, so two rows of tabs will result, the first one (in the foreground) will contain the tabs 1.txt, 2.txt, 3.txt, 4.txt; the second one (in the foreground) will contain the tabs 5.txt, 6.txt, 7.txt, 8.txt.
Now click directly on e.g. 7.txt. This will result in a reordered tab sequence: Not the rows will chance places, but the tabs of 7.txt and 3.txt, which is even more obvious when you make the window wide enough to show all tabs side by side in one row again.

* I find it really contra-intuitive that newly opened documents are opened at the first position of the tabs. Most applications I know open new documents at the end of whatever queue. But anyways, maybe this behaviour could be set in the preferences?

* Now that the tab order can be changed by the user finally, workspaces should really save and restore that order!


Best wishes from Germany and thanks for developing that great editor TextPad!

<bumping and wondering why there are no replies at all>

I'd like to second sriedel's request. When working with lots of open documents, it's really helpful to order them and have them retain their order next time I open the workspace. Also, the new files opening at left, rather than right, is a little odd.

BTW, I just upgraded to 5.0.3. Other than a few little things, like the tab issues, it's great. Thanks.

I agree, new files coming in on the left is counter-intuitive when based against the operation of all other programs I've used.

Also, when trying to select the windows through the Window menu, the numbering of the documents constantly adjusts depending upon the current document. Whereas most programs keep the numbering consistent, TextPad 5 seems to reorder the numbering so that the current document is always numbered 1. This is very confusing and makes quickly switching to other documents a hassle, as one always has to check the menu to find which number has been assigned.

I imagine the most intuitive method would be to have the window menu maintain numbering based upon the order of the tabs.

So, the order of new tabs appearing on the left rather than right is permanently designed like that??

Oh gosh, what a weird design!!

I agree with smolkowski!!

Please please I need a new tab opened on the right!

Me too!

For much of my work I am changing between 10+ files that are variations of each other, with filenames differing only by a few characters to represent year and various scenarios. Changing tab order makes it very difficult to work with these files!

- Scott B.

So, still no fix in version 5.1.0 is it?

I agree with this. The jumping tabs is a real nuisance. Effectively, you can't reorder tabs if they take up more than one row.

It will take way much more than 6 people bitching about this to have them put it back the way it was - after all the effort that went into screwing up a logical left to right system, dont expect this misbehaviour to change in our lifetime.

Going from right to left is not progress, its backward. Keith?

At a time when the chinese newspapers are switching to left to right we see textpad take an opposite view and try to confuse its user base by going backward.

Has a bright spark from micro$oft has joined the textpad team
That would explain why. If not, then it was just a plain dumb idea.

webmasta

I thought this is fixed on 5.20 but I am wrong, am I???!

I know this is an old topic, but I just upgraded to 5.3 tonight after *years* of using 4.7.3. Anyways, I also find the fact that new documents open up on the left particularly annoying. However, I noticed something peculiar that makes me suspect it's a bug and not a "feature". On a fresh start of the program, I open three documents and they show as such:

3.txt // 2.txt // 1.txt

But when I turn off the document tabs, then turn them back on, they now appear in the proper left-to-right order:

1.txt // 2.txt // 3.txt

Maybe if we get this submitted as a bug, then it will finally get fixed?

Chris

I posted a poll asking for this to fixed. Vote on it - http://forums.textpad.com/viewtopic.php?p=36809