Multiple tabs

[Nevon]

I saw that you had mentioned elsewhere that tab support was something that you were considering, but hadn't come to a conclusion on yet, so I figured I'd create a ticket to voice my support.

Being able to have multiple sessions going on at the same time is 100% paramount to me being able to use this extension. I love it for its sleekness and beauty, but every time I have an ssh session going on and need to do something on my local machine at the same time, I consider going back to Guake or something like it. I find having a separate terminal running to be very inelegant and clumsy when I need to switch between them quickly, so having it built into this extension would be all kinds of wonderful.

[zzrough]

A couple of comments:

• I wrote how I used stjerm before here: https://github.com/zzrough/gs-extensions-drop-down-terminal/issues/5#issuecomment-9786701
• The fact that it is required for you to use the extension and the fact you consider going back to guake: that's really something I hate to hear. I listen to requests, and if that makes sense and can help most people and I have the time to do it, I'll implement happily. And I implement most of them! Now, knowing that you need it to use the extension?! I seriously coudn't care less. You were living without it before. If you consider going back to guake: cool, use it if it fits your needs. You'd better not change of software just because it's a bit sleeker you know ;) Sorry for the rant, but recent linux users (<10y) can't stop saying that, and do not understand developers do not care about switching to something else. FOSS is about choice, if you have a better choice, use it. Please, stop saying that in other projects too, this is irritating not only for me. It's just like if you'd be buying something and trying to get a discount by saying there are missing features to the seller...
• Now, if you looked my comment in issue #5, you've seen that I liked tabs a lot, but this terminal is for doing something quickly and going back, or monitor something. An ssh session means working for some time. For development, I myself need multiple tabs, but then, when I finished working, I close my multi-tabs gnome-terminal and just surf on the internal. From time to time, I launch a couple of commands with this extension, and that's fast, sleek, simple.
• If you are a hard fan of tabs you can use screen, as suggested by multiple users, they manage tabs way better that I do, plus it detaches/nohup your ssh sessions, so you can be sure you will not loose what you are doing if your display server crashes for instance.
• That's why there are way more users asking for not implementing tabs than implement it. On top of that, it will be slower (because the terminal is controlled via dbus), it's a lot of work, it will surely not be sleek because it's done in gtk, and will need adding settings and bother the ones that do not care about that feature and are a vast majority.
• Now, I consider it like any feature because I'm sure a lot of people is interesting. I certainly will do it, but, clearly, after doing the main of the work to get this terminal in the right direction.
• Try for a week to use gnome-terminal for longer working sessions (Super,term,Enter,Super+Up ~= 1s to launch) and rely on this extension only for short term commands or monitoring.... or just continue to use Guake: it's a fine piece of software too!

[Nevon]

Whoa there. Relax. I'm certainly not about to strong-arm you into implementing something you don't want. I can certainly understand why you wouldn't want to do it, and why you (at least as far as I can tell) don't think it fits your overall design goals. I just thought it would be appropriate to have a place to discuss the issue, instead of spreading the discussion in a bunch of unrelated tickets. Consider it a feature request, and do with that what you will.

For me, the fact that you added support for running a custom command solves this issue, as I can just have it run screen.

[ogarcia]

+1 to multiple tabs, but with time and relax... ;)

[zzrough]

@ogarcia : I added your vote in the roadmap, and I my rant was strictly contained in the 2nd paragraph, the rest is cool ;)

[muhas]

+1 vote

[wnm]

+1 for tabs, if my vote counts

[egyptianbman]

+1 for tabs.

[bigbn]

+2 for tabs! )

[arashm]

:-1: I really don't like to see tabs in my drop down terminal. I use this extension with Tmux that does have buffers. Even if you guys decided to implement this feature, please add an option to disable it.

thanks for the great extension

[zzrough]

@arashm Many are asking to not have multiple tabs ... I really think it's not useful at all for the reasons I outlined in the first comment (screen better handles ssh, faster terminal, ...)

If I get the time to implement multiple-tabs support, it would be opt-in (you must explicitely tell you want it in the settings), as I do not want to clutter/slowdown the "regular" experience.

@everybody What summarize what I think this terminal is all about :

Love it! Quickly became my most used way of accessing a terminal for quick and dirty stuff. Left my friend with his jaw open when I casually dropped down the terminal.

— Kikito on extensions.gnome.org

I really thing it's better to drop a gnome-terminal for longer work sessions. See the rationale in my first comment. Seriously, try it, it's a nice duo!

Anyway, the best way to get it soon is a pull request ;-)

[vger79r]

I do agree with @arashm, with a properly setted up tmux you can get a very nice experience. I use drop-down-terminal with 100% height, with mcabber, mutt and mocp already launched and setted up with the start of the notebook, and it works like a charm.

You should put this info in the wiki and hint at it in the Gnome-Extensions page, so users will stop asking the feature.. ..I can provide a simple configuration example if needed.

[dasunsrule32]

I don't see a need for the multiple tabs either. I use byobu (screen) with it, and it's perfect and quick.

[sferich888]

+1 I like Guake but this is much cleaner but still multi-tab support would be nice, haveing worked with screen I feel that multi tabs are much simpler, and cleaner (one of point to this extension)

[msize]

I want tabs and I got it:

1. I installed screen
2. I added this line in my ~/.screenrc: caption always "%{= kw}%-w%{= BW}%n %t%{-}%+w %-= @%H - %Y-%m-%d %c:%s"
3. And I added this custom command into drop down terminal preferences: screen -S ddt

[jbeja]

Thanks @msize i will try that.

[captn3m0]

I just use byobu in the drop-down terminal for emulated tabs using screen. Just press F2 to create a new tab and use F3/F4 to navigate between them.

[muhas]

screen(byobu)/tmux not comfortable if it's also used on the remote server and use the drop-down terminal walk on this server

[soncodi]

:-1: byobu works very well already. If you do add this feature, please consider making the keybinds optional to reduce clutter.

[githubrsys]

Emulated tabs are bull****. Especially are the packages for them not in every distribution. So a clean new tab with [CTRL]+[T] invoked is still really really missing. Would be awesome if integrated. Then this package can compete.

[jensck]

preemptive tl;dr: tabs have their own legitimate value; be careful when making assumptions about workflow with a highly general tool like a terminal. For the sake of signal/noise on this bug: please, please, please, stop saying "just use X" instead. That was a helpful suggestion the first time, but after that, it became a non-answer, and is distracting from evaluating the feature on its own!

---

Looks more to me like the majority of the legit "against" reasons are:

• tabs should be optional
• adding tabs shouldn't cause workflow changes or introduce regressions (bugs, performance problems) for current users

Those are totally reasonable and valid concerns. I don't think those are votes "against" the feature though, they're principles for its implementation.

These arguments are distractions/derailments, IMO:

• Just use screen!
• Just use Gnome Terminal!

Tabbed terminals and screen aren't drop-in replacements for one another. If screen fulfilled everyones needs, why does Gnome Terminal have tabs?

And as for Gnome Terminal, part of the reason people are asking for tabs is that they'd like this to basically replace Gnome Terminal for their daily use, and the only thing getting in the way of that is the lack of proper tabs.

[sferich888]

@jensck I 100% agree with you, however I feel the reason people don't use screen or tmux is simply because they don't understand it or don't want to learn.

Fundamentally screen was the first implementation of "tabs" so those who still follow the "old ways" see adding tabs to something simply a way improve user experience and mmaximize the limited desktop space that users have. Personal I use screen with the drop down terminal, and feel it's better than tabs (but that's my oppinion).

[eode]

+1 for gui tabs!

I use use tmux and screen (and have in recent years come to quite like byobu) -- and I would really like to see an implementation of local tabs. I usually have byobu running on remote hosts I ssh into, by default viewing things I need to monitor, but frequently with a shell or three open in other (remote) tabs.

Although it is doable to use a remote byobu session through a local byobu session, it is by no means convenient, and it is visually cluttered. I'd rather like to keep my local session switching to a different set of keypresses than my remotes. It would be nice to bind alt-left/alt-right, and with that, zip through a set of tabs, quickly eyeballing them for changes.

..and, if votes for style or convenience count, the tabs in Looking Glass are quite visually appealing, and would probably provide useful example code.

[corna]

Any news regarding this feature? Your dropdown terminal looks wonderful, but I can't use it without multiple tabs

[thankjura]

+1 for gui tabs!

[ootada]

screens on multiple remote servers = need for the basic tabs switchable by keyboard shortcut

[letorbi]

I'm thinking about implementing tabs in a minimal invasive way. No visibile interface just four keyboard shortcuts:

• ctrl+shift+t new tab
• ctrl+shift+pgUp next tab
• ctrl+shift+pgDown previous tab
• ctrl+shift+w close tab

The shortcuts are the same like in gnome-terminal, so they shouldn't interfere with other commands/applications, but to be sure there could be an option to disable tabs explicitly. This way tabs won't get in the way of people, who don't like them, and even with tabs enabled the slick look of the drop-down terminal would be preserved.

Would a pull-request that imlements tabs as described above have a chance to be accepted?

[ootada]

• at least add direct selection shortcuts for the tabs, like smth+1 smth+2 ...
• i would be very happy to be able to change shortcut keys ( at least that smth )
• no visual interface might work... or show overlay info about tabs only when pressing tab shortcuts ( alt-tab-style ) ?

[Frederik-Baetens]

-1 for tabs, i also don't think it's nessecary. after using guake, i think you shouldn't try to become guake, you made a very simple program, that does what it has to do, and i don't think you should comlicate it anymore, i love the animation, the design and te speed.

[bigbn]

I made simple tab implementation: zzrough/gs-extensions-drop-down-terminal#150

[eode]

Nice! Since it's a pretty divisive issue, though, perhaps it should be disabled by default, so it's an opt-in feature. I'm going to give it a try, though -- nested screen or tmux sessions are definitely not an interesting kind of complex, and having local tabs is very nice.