from the why-not-beta-for-some-years-before-tossing-the-idea? dept.
For two periods last year, those using preview builds of Windows 10 could access to a feature called Sets: a tabbed interface that was eventually to allow tabs to be put in the titlebar of just about any window. These tabs would allow both multiple copies of the same application to be combined—a tabbed Explorer or Command Prompt, say—and multiple disparate windows to be grouped—combining, say, a browser window containing research with the Word window. However, both times the feature was enabled only for a few weeks, so Microsoft could gather data, before disabling it. Sets aren't in the Windows 10 May 2019 update.
The Shell-provided tab experience is no more, but adding tabs is high on our to do list.
— Rich Turner (@richturn_ms) April 20, 2019
It seems now that Sets are unlikely to ever materialize. Rich Turner, who oversees Microsoft's revamping of the Windows command-line infrastructure and the Windows Subsystem for Linux tweeted that the interface "is no more." Having everything tabbed everywhere isn't going to happen. Adding tabs specifically for command-line windows is, however, "high on [Microsoft's] to do list."
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday April 24 2019, @05:44PM (6 children)
Why don't they just fork one of the existing CLI's from Linux. I'm partial to LXTerminal, myself. I don't know if there is any limit to the number of tabs I can have open. I've had as many as twenty open at the same time. I'll admit, I didn't really need all of them - I was just bulling my way through something that I was having problems with. There are better, more elegant ways to do what I was doing. But, the next guy may actually need fifty terminals open! That's a major pain on Windows!
“I have become friends with many school shooters” - Tampon Tim Walz
(Score: 3, Disagree) by janrinok on Wednesday April 24 2019, @06:09PM (4 children)
Maybe because if they use it they are bound by its license? I can't see MS wanting to give people their source code, even if it is only a slightly modified version of something that is already available.
[nostyle RIP 06 May 2025]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 24 2019, @06:42PM (1 child)
Just because one piece of software installed has an open source license doesn't magically make all the software on it open source. That's not how the GPL works.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday April 24 2019, @07:06PM
The GPL does affect (transitively) all of the software that it is linked with.
What linked means for C and C++ is pretty well defined.
The GPL does not affect other software merely aggregated with the GPL software. It is clear that a CD full of free software means 'aggregated'. But what about a Windows install disk? Is that 'aggregated' or would the GPL software actually require more of Windows to be GPL licensed?
I'm sure Microsoft wants to take the most safe possible interpretation of GPL in order to not bring their software under the scope of the GPL.
The server will be down for replacement of vacuum tubes, belts, worn parts and lubrication of gears and bearings.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday April 24 2019, @10:56PM (1 child)
MS really stepped-up their open source approach for quite a while. As long as it's written in C# and not GPL-ed, that is (they started to use even MIT license for their OSS code)
Some examples:
https://github.com/dotnet/coreclr [github.com]
https://github.com/dotnet/wpf [github.com]
https://github.com/aspnet/EntityFrameworkCore [github.com]
https://github.com/dotnet/machinelearning-samples [github.com]
https://www.youtube.com/@ProfSteveKeen https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Thursday April 25 2019, @03:29AM
if they have forked LXTerminal, which is what the earlier post suggests, then it is written in C and is covered by the GPL.
[nostyle RIP 06 May 2025]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 25 2019, @11:04AM
I'm lucky. I will continue to have my tabbed windows with Fluxbox window manager.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by DannyB on Wednesday April 24 2019, @07:18PM (3 children)
So what would a Microsoft implementation of a tabbed interface look like? Even if only for a command line window with tabs.
* tabs within tabs. Under one tab, there may be sub-tabs. And sub-sub tabs. Until you drill down to an actual command line.
* limits on number of tabs set by the license or activation code of the Windows OS. Users who get more benefit from tabs should have to pay for it.
* tabs should be highly permission restricted. Even command line access should have additional hoops to jump through. Command line users must have special role memberships, and other settings that are scattered among different parts of windows configuration dialog maze.
* tabs should require a complex configuration in order to setup properly. A configuration file that is XML with elements that contain YAML, with entries that contain JSON.
* if any process in a tab crashes, it should bring down the entire tabbed interface window of all tabs. Maybe even a blue scream of death.
* resizing of the command line window should have awkward effects on all embedded command lines within it
What am I missing?
Does marketing / management have any additional requirements? Like each tab should have a URL? And a UUID, just because, of, um . . . something.
The server will be down for replacement of vacuum tubes, belts, worn parts and lubrication of gears and bearings.
(Score: 4, Funny) by Snospar on Wednesday April 24 2019, @07:54PM
Nah, it will be a completely flat interface with no visual clue that multiple tabs exist at all. To switch to the correct tab you simply start typing something that you already typed in that tab and... you get the picture.
Huge thanks to all the Soylent volunteers without whom this community (and this post) would not be possible.
(Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Thursday April 25 2019, @02:15PM (1 child)
There shall be no command line. It will be tabs all the way down, I tell you!
This sig for rent.
(Score: 3, Funny) by DannyB on Thursday April 25 2019, @05:21PM
The command line will be replaced by Windows 3.1 Program Mangler and File Mangler.
The server will be down for replacement of vacuum tubes, belts, worn parts and lubrication of gears and bearings.
(Score: 2) by turgid on Wednesday April 24 2019, @08:14PM (1 child)
This is what happens when the Marketing Department designs your software. This is why FOSS wins. Anyone can have anything they like.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 3, Informative) by DannyB on Wednesday April 24 2019, @09:59PM
It's why we have so many different distributions and desktops.
But it is also why Linux and Open Source in general are taking over the world. So much so that Microsoft must embrace it.
The server will be down for replacement of vacuum tubes, belts, worn parts and lubrication of gears and bearings.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 24 2019, @09:08PM (3 children)
Underneath the hood in web browsers, I assume they're lighter weight than processes. To me, tabs always seemed like a workaround for some deficiency in the underlying OS's UI or process control API.
From a UI standpoint, I could get everything I needed from the task bar starting in Windows 95, and for a long time I resisted using tabs in the browser UI because it seemed redundant--I could task switch using the OS. I didn't need it in the browser, the muscle memory was already there.
Then about 10 years ago I warmed up to it in the browser for some reason, probably because MS was mucking around with the UI and if it had anything to do with threads and processes, I figured it'd be better to just use the browser paradigm that everybody else was using in order to reduce resource use and/or bugs. Then real killer apps for tabs in the browser started happening, such as "undo closed tab" and I haven't looked back.
So. What would be the appeal of putting tabs in the OS anyway? Fundamentally it's not that different than buttons on the task bar. It just *looks* different. In an OS it wouldn't *do* anything different because each application is a full-blown process. Applications would have to implement an "undo close" that worked with the OS, or the OS would have to fake closing apps by default which probably has security implications. If people just want the tab look, it seems like they could just do it as a skin.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 25 2019, @01:09AM (1 child)
One possibility is to try to accomodate all those folks who have a CPU with the computational strength of 20 Cray-1's of the 1970's, coupled to a video card with the computational strength of 200 Cray-1's of the 1970's, who then proceed to run every single application on their system maximized to full screen, resulting in a UI no more powerful than that offered by a DEC VT100 from the 1970's (except with more pixels, more colors, and individual pixel addressability).
For those folks, since they also are unlikely to turn on the "group similar task bar items together" option, tabs at the top holding the four copies of MS-Turd they currently have open seems easier to use than having to hunt for where the icon is located in the now overflowing task bar.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 25 2019, @11:11AM
It's funny how much of our processing power get lost to bigger displays. Do we really need all that visual information?
I'll postulate a proportionality principle between computing power and the display size (because it's funnier than pixels). Thus increasing the computing power will not give better performance only bigger displays.
(Score: 2) by shortscreen on Thursday April 25 2019, @03:36AM
The old (real) Opera used MDI. Tabs were just another way to switch between child windows, rather than using a drop-down list or having to minimize one to reveal another. But the tabs could still be tiled or cascaded just like Windows 3.1 Program Manager. It also allowed multiple (parent) windows, but unfortunately they all ran under the same process.
(Score: 2) by inertnet on Wednesday April 24 2019, @09:11PM (1 child)
I have always tried to avoid using tabs. I use a browser plugin to open instances in new windows instead of tabs.
Not that this Windows thing would have hindered me much, because I use Linux. But still, I hate tabs, especially if there's no option to not use them.
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Thursday April 25 2019, @06:39AM
I use several windows and several tabs. And windows on several desktops.
Yes, I have far too many pages open at the same time.;-)
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2) by AssCork on Wednesday April 24 2019, @09:15PM (1 child)
Microsoft can't get a feature right that 3rd party software has been doing for years! Has thrown in the towel, signaling to the rest of the entry that the Fat Redmond Checkbook(tm) has just been whipped-out!
Tune in at 11 for our 'Top Ten Lucky Basterds that Might Get Bought-Out'!
Just popped-out of a tight spot. Came out mostly clean, too.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 24 2019, @09:21PM
I agree. This is application level stuff, not what I would call OS functionality, but then "OS publishers" -- Windows, Mac, Linux -- blurred and destroyed that distinction years ago.
(Score: 4, Disagree) by tibman on Wednesday April 24 2019, @10:03PM
Cmd.exe sucks. Anyone who is doing CLI work in windows is probably using a 3rd-party terminal over cmd.exe anyways. I'm partial to ConEmu: https://conemu.github.io/ [github.io]
Yes, it has tabs.
SN won't survive on lurkers alone. Write comments.
(Score: 2) by Nerdfest on Thursday April 25 2019, @01:43AM
KDE has a better solution than tabs, I think, called "Activities". It's not bad, but not really required in my opinion unless you have a very large number of related tasks. It is a handy feature sometimes though.