Reducing tab size

[Luke Schierer]

On Thu, Aug 02, 2007 at 07:32:32PM -0700, Sean Egan wrote:
> On 8/2/07, Lukas Barth <tinloaf at goerresonline.de> wrote:
> > If my buddy has gone offline, it makes no sense to activate that tab.
> > The problem is: If I don't see "Buddy has gone offline" from the
> > tablist, I will activate that tab to talk to that buddy (and therefor
> > start tabbing through the tablist), then see he has gone offline and
> > have wasted time changing keyboards and tabbing through the list for
> > nothing.
> 
> Right now I have 9 tabs open and my window is currently wide enough to
> hold 3 tabs without scrolling. If I'm interested in talking on any
> particular conversation, there's a 2⁄3 chance I'll need to switch to
> that tab anyway.
> 
> If we remove the status icon, I can fit 6 tabs, and have only a 1⁄3
> chance of having to jump through hoops to switch to my desired
> conversation.
> 
> Then, if we do something less space-filled to indicate an offline user
>  – italicize the title, perhaps – then your use case is filled much
> better.

This sounds good.  You can remove the status icons if you make the
offline buddy text italicized.

The close buttons I disagree though.  I currently load an extention in
firefox that puts the close buttons on all of the tabs, specifically
because I am nearly as likely to close a non-current tab as I am to
close the current one.  The more tabs that can usefully be displayed at
once, the *more* likely I am to be closing non-current tabs.  

While middle click to close would allow this, I tend to forget it
exists.  I suppose I would get used to it as a frequent user though.

luke