Question about the new tabs.

I am not sure if this is a bug or intended behaviour, but the number on the tab for each world which indicates how many lines have come into a world since it was in focus only shows up when you switch from one world to another (not necessarily to a world with activity, though). If you do switch to a world that has had new activity, the number only goes away when you switch away from it again.

If they're meant to indicate activity, shouldn't they show up automatically, and go away as a world with new activity comes into focus? :)

Other than that, the tabs are looking very nice. :)

Does it show the new line count in the title bar? I can't get mine to do that anyway. ;)

After using it since yesterday, it seems it does it now and then. I haven't been able to pin-point quite when it does or doesn't, though. Occasionally a number shows up when I switch between worlds, but sometimes it doesn't even though there has been activity. So for now it does need the help of the activity bar still.

What I mean is, that in the main window for the world, I never get the number of new lines. Do you? I'm not really expecting it to show up in the tabs.

What I am seeing is that in some instances, a number appears after the world name on the tabs (just like it does on the little worldlist you can access by clicking the name in the toolbar). This appears to indicate number of new lines received since that world last had focus. Or is that something else?

I had thought that was intentional, as it sort of seemed to match how the worldlist pop-up works. Its also a good idea, if someone wants to use only the tabs and not the activity toolbar, as it provides an instant visual cue to a world having received new info.

But maybe we're talking about two different things? :)

I know the number you mean on the menu on the status bar. That was intentional. However I have never seen it on the tab yet. I can believe there is a refresh issue on the tabs, however I don't know where it would get that number in the first place.

Very odd. It does show up here, but very occasionally.

I have changed the code a bit to update the tabs more often. Hopefully that will have some effect.

Hey, can the tab text color turn red when there is new activity?

Er, not right now. The code I borrowed simply repeats the title of the MDI window. Not all windows have new activity anyway (eg. notepad windows).

Wouldn't it be possible to borrow code from the activity toolbar to colour those windows that do have new activity? Or is the principle completely different?

For notepad windows, it might be nice if the tab indicates whether they have been saved or not since the last change. I've seen that in some programs, and its a fairly good way to keep track of unsaved work.

After a bit of digging into how the code works, I have modified it to show the number of new lines (eg. PennMUSH (32)) and in the case of notepad windows to add an asterisk if there is unsaved text.

Version 3.61 is now out with the improved tabs.

Linda, perhaps you can tell me if they work OK for you.

Do you think having tabs should be a default (default on) for new users, or not?

No, default off.

That way, assuming someone has upgraded or whatever, and doesnt have the key yet, his MC still looks the same, rather than some tabs showing up and changing the way his stuff looks.

And now we're onto version 3.62. Some minor problems with tabs under 3.61. Sometimes they were blank, sometimes they didn't quite update fast enough.

Now it refreshes the tabs every 5 seconds, so things like changes to whether or not a notepad window needs saving, or the count of unread lines for a MUD connection, should be updated at least within 5 seconds.

Sorry, missed 3.61 entirely. By the time I woke up, 3.62 was out. :)

Tabs off as default does sound best, but maybe a shortcut to turning them on and off could be on the views menu?

The refresh time in 3.62 looks pretty good for the tabs, but was the indication that a world is closed taken out from the tabs? Its not showing up for me, at least.

Well, yes. Previously it just took the window title, which had the word "[closed]" in it (sometimes). Now it queries the name of the world and adds the number of unseen lines. So it is done differently.

Ah, okay. And it isn't easily doable to use the same kind of colour-coding as the activity toolbar has for different world statuses in addition to reporting the number of new lines?

I'll look at it, but the problems with colour coding are not so much doing the colours, as choosing what they are. Since Windows lets each use customise their theme, an arbitrary decision to use (say) green for connected worlds, might make the text invisible if they happen to have a green theme.

So you would need to define what the colours needed are (like, connected, closed, new activity, etc.) and then we could look at having somewhere that defines what those colours actually are for an individual user, and then finally drawing them.

You worry too much about stuff you shouldn't... Why not just implement it if it's easy and worry about themes later. Besides, if I had a green theme, I just wouldn't choose green as a colour.

OK, I've looked at it. The colour is not chosen anywhere in the code I do, it is drawn by the tabs control.

I'm not going to change it right now, at least you have tabs, and the number in brackets indicates new activity.

Isn't the issue with colour schemes & themes already present for the colouring of the numbers on the activity toolbar as well? Wouldn't the effect be the same there if someone picked a colour for closed (or active) which clashes with their theme?

To an extent, however the button bars are actually small bitmaps (images), so the number and its background are fixed. They may clash with your colour scheme, but at least they will always be readable.

Oh, heh, my theme is so close to the background colour on those buttons that I didn't realize they were images. :)

I do think, as was pointed out, that most people will think about their theme colours when they select the colour scheme for the tabs (if there was such an option), but for now it works okay with just the line numbers. It would just be that much more noticeable with colour. :)