Apache OpenOffice (AOO) Bugzilla – Issue 6371
A tabbed interface, like Opera/Mozilla, would be wonderful
Last modified: 2005-03-04 23:27:58 UTC
I'm not sure if this is a word processor intreface or a framework one, since I don't know whether it is useful in other portions of the suite. But a tabbed interface, to allow one easily to examine different files side by side, would be a tremendous enhancement to OOo. I know that in general an SDI interface is more useful than an MDI one; but as the examples of Opera and Mozilla show, people like having a choice, and for working with multiple documents in Windows, it is clearly the best alternative. I know it's possible to fake something up by adjusting SDI properties. But then you run into problems with menus running off screen and so on. I just want to be able to have eg two drafts of the same document painlessly arranged to two vertically split windows.
TM->FT: Another wish for an enhancement ! Please have a look, thanks !
or even like gedit ! :^) This is a very interesting idea. It appeals to me an awful lot. But I think it wants a lot of thought. In practice I tend to open more than one instance of gedit rather than use the tabs, as I want to view more than one thing at a time. I do use the tabs a lot on Opera, but that is because I am waiting for it to do something, and am multi-tasking. In most office-apps I am inputting data, and only rarely cutting-and-pasting between two windows. And would you have a spreadsheet tab next to a wp tab? or not? It's a stimulating idea, but I am only half convinced. It's one thing if it's easy - it's quite another if it detracts effort from more serious matters. I suspect that issues like this need a usability survey of some sort!
It may indeed detract attention from more serious matters. And it shouldn't be done befor ehtye are fixed. Nor do I think that it would be very helpful to have a spreadsheet tab next to a writer tab (though the present interface for manipulating data sources does work like that, a bit. What I wanted was the ability to have two text streams side by side in an MDI interface. This is common in programming editors, I think. Certainly, Ultraedit has it. But it's also very useful for people like journalists who are manipulating two or three drafts or source documents into a single final text. That's certainly why I would like it. I often work off a page of notes or transcripts, dragging chunks into a final script I'm writing.
Sorry guys, starting with OO we abandoned the idea of a MDI. We got a lot of negative feedback from users based on our last MDI interface office (aka StarOffice 5.2).
closed
See issue 12686. It is duplicate of this feature and currently open. The listed comments in this issue directly apply to the afformentioned 12686 issue.