+3

Use entire pane as drop target when moving tabs

Phillip Koebbe 12 years ago updated 12 years ago 7
I use a 2 row layout quite a bit and when organizing tabs, I have to drag all the way to other tab bar to move a tab from one pane to the other. If I drop it too early, a whole new window gets created, which forces me to move it so I can drag and drop the tab again. It would be nice if the entire pane was a drop target and not just the tab bar.
I can see your point of view, but I'm wondering if that would make it too difficult to drag a tab out to create a new window when that is what one wants to do?
Thanks for the input, Keith. I actually thought the same thing after I posted. Personally, I don't drag and drop tabs to create new windows, so it wouldn't affect me at all. But I have no idea how prevalent that use case is. Do you do it often?
I do so reasonably often - may I suggest making use of the shortcut keys to move files between groups instead of dragging and dropping?  ctrl-shift-1 would move a tab from the bottom row to the top and ctrl-shift-2 would move a tab from the top row to the bottom row :)
+1
The keyboard shortcut works well when you only want to move one tab, but not so well when you have multiple tabs to move. And during the time I am doing this, I'm already working with the mouse.


Thanks again for contributing. It really helps to see other points of view. Jon is pretty amazing, though, so maybe he can figure out a way to satisfy both use cases!


Edit: I'd be satisfied with a key modifier on the drag/drop. If I hold down SUPER while dragging, it would use the whole pane as the target. No key, no change in behavior.

What would you think of being able to right click on a tab and there being an option to 'move to next group' or something?  It would result in more clicking, but less mouse movement ;)

Edit: just seen your edit - that was going to be my next suggestion lol - but I'd quite like to see the tab context menu option too :)
Context menu might not be bad. I'd think that the modifier key idea would be easier to implement, though.
+1
Just discovered an alternative: dragging/dropping the filename between groups in the sidebar. I'll give it some use to see if doing it this way will satisfy my needs.