Sublime Forum

Impossible to find Active tab in multi-column layout

#1

It’s not impossible, but you have to hunt down a blinking caret.

https://www.strongspace.com/shared/fglwdoey2r

When you’re in a multi-column layout it’s very hard to quickly figure out which tab has focus, and when you’re moving between a shell and ST2 regularly, it’s painful to figure out exactly where to look if you have anything other than a single column of tabs.

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#2

Yes!

Groups need some kind of identifer label and an active group border.

Sublime has support for arbitrarily complex layouts but the UI/UX isn’t quite there yet.

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#3

[quote=“castles_made_of_sand”]Yes!

Groups need some kind of identifer label and an active group border.

Sublime has support for arbitrarily complex layouts but the UI/UX isn’t quite there yet.[/quote]

I agree, but it shouldn’t be something on the tab, maybe some different shadowing around the border to identify the active group, mostly because I keep tabs hidden.

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#4

This is an exaggeration:

http://gmh.akalias.net/aMAZEing.jpg

But the point being it would be great to have some way of knowing the group number/id/index for more complex layouts.

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#5

Even something as simple as this would get us most of the way there:
https://www.strongspace.com/shared/f854jbzytq

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#6

What do you mean? That’s what my layout looks like all the time :wink:

By the way, @castles_made_of_sand, how’s your layout splitting plugin coming along?

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#7

how’s your layout splitting plugin coming along?

It works enough to be useful and I’m finding myself using splits/clones etc alot more often ( I used to feel claustrophobic every time i ventured from a 1x1 layout)

However there’s a few blocking API/UX issues.

I’ve got split at cursor working etc but It’s going to have automatic cell sizing eventually, shrinkwrapping around the visible regions. You can see a proof of concept here, expanding and hugging tight against the longest visible line: retortrecords.com/sounds/autohug … ggery.html

I want to hook up a graph for auto association between various regions in various buffers. Step 1: learn about graphs lol

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#8

Commands like selecting regions in buffer[s] and using folding and layouts to tile out the regions … Using inversion folding around regions to create view based sidebars…

Buffer Origami

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#9

[quote=“hemancuso”]Even something as simple as this would get us most of the way there:
https://www.strongspace.com/shared/f854jbzytq[/quote]

Only the tab for the active group is highlighted?

But then how would you know which buffer is active in each group? This is handy to have.

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#10

You can tell which buffer is active in the left group because it is separated from the content by the short gradient, not the line marking the top of the buffer.

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#11

Ah, yeah, I see it now.

I’d probably find that a little too subtle personally, especially when there was 8-9 tabs.

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#12

The other obvious candidate for an easy solution is to darken the background color of inactive buffers [and tab images], like this:
https://www.strongspace.com/shared/a5cj7lg1vu

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#13

You could probably make an on_activated/on_deactivated plugin to flip colorschemes if it’s a real PITA for you.

Just be sure to use something like the Idle Watcher from these old ST1 examples: sublimetext.com/docs/plugin-examples else you cop that hit during hot reloads. OUCH.

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#14

[quote=“hemancuso”]The other obvious candidate for an easy solution is to darken the background color of inactive buffers [and tab images], like this:
https://www.strongspace.com/shared/a5cj7lg1vu[/quote]

I like that better as it keeps the relativity eh?

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#15

Or slightly lighten the tab background of the active group and darken the background of an inactive group

https://www.strongspace.com/shared/274dbkatos

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