4 ms·

You can have many things going at the same time, and select between them using the buffer menu. I find the devotion of yet another chunk of screen real estate

You can have many things going at the same time, and select between them using the buffer menu. I find the devotion of yet another chunk of screen real estate to the tab list rather a waste, but shrug aesthetics. C-x C-b shows you the list of tabs ("buffers") and lets you select from them easily. As a bonus, the title portion isn't compressed to incomprehensibility when they get numerous.

klibertp 7y ago
I use tabs to switch between window configurations. Say I code in Python, with docs and shell windows on the right. Then I want to quickly take a look at git history. But, if I start magit, it will hijack the window configuration and my carefully placed/resized windows will get messy. So, I open a new tab and start magit there. Now, I can switch between the two tabs - ie. window/buffer layouts - with a single key. The fact that I mention saving the layout of windows should hint that I know you can do this in vanilla Emacs by saving and restoring window configurations, but it's much less hassle with tabs. Also, you can hide tab bar (as well as menu bar and button bar) when you don't need it, and it's actually quite handy when you do need it. To each their own of course, just saying there are good uses for tabs in Emacs, unless you want to delegate this to your WM and launch one frame per window config.
- gpderetta 7y ago
  hum, tabs for frames, not buffers basically. That seems useful. What's your setup?
  - dan-robertson 7y ago
    Not frames but window configurations (the things you can save with C-x r w and restore with C-x r j), although one can also save the frame configuration too.
- dmortin 7y ago
  > To each their own of course, just saying there are good uses for tabs in Emacs, unless you want to delegate this to your WM You mention window configurations, and you say " it's much less hassle with tabs." You can assign a single key to switch between window configurations too and then it's practically the same, isn't it?
  - klibertp 7y ago
    Yeah, not "practically", but simply "the same" - that's exactly how half of my tabs (elscreen.el) is implemented (the other half being creating, displaying and updating the "tabbar"). In other words, if you use winner mode, or have a couple of custom wrappers around window layouts and use those, you're practically already using tabs, just without a tabbar! ;)

klibertp 7y ago

I use tabs to switch between window configurations. Say I code in Python, with docs and shell windows on the right. Then I want to quickly take a look at git history. But, if I start magit, it will hijack the window configuration and my carefully placed/resized windows will get messy. So, I open a new tab and start magit there. Now, I can switch between the two tabs - ie. window/buffer layouts - with a single key. The fact that I mention saving the layout of windows should hint that I know you can do this in vanilla Emacs by saving and restoring window configurations, but it's much less hassle with tabs. Also, you can hide tab bar (as well as menu bar and button bar) when you don't need it, and it's actually quite handy when you do need it. To each their own of course, just saying there are good uses for tabs in Emacs, unless you want to delegate this to your WM and launch one frame per window config.

gpderetta 7y ago
hum, tabs for frames, not buffers basically. That seems useful. What's your setup?
- dan-robertson 7y ago
  Not frames but window configurations (the things you can save with C-x r w and restore with C-x r j), although one can also save the frame configuration too.
dmortin 7y ago
> To each their own of course, just saying there are good uses for tabs in Emacs, unless you want to delegate this to your WM You mention window configurations, and you say " it's much less hassle with tabs." You can assign a single key to switch between window configurations too and then it's practically the same, isn't it?
- klibertp 7y ago
  Yeah, not "practically", but simply "the same" - that's exactly how half of my tabs (elscreen.el) is implemented (the other half being creating, displaying and updating the "tabbar"). In other words, if you use winner mode, or have a couple of custom wrappers around window layouts and use those, you're practically already using tabs, just without a tabbar! ;)