Ctrl+Tab to change tab in Nautilus

[dakota]

Ctrl+Tab = change tab in Nautilus like firefox. Thanks!

[Lorenzo (lorenzo-delledonne)]

Thank you for the report.
I think it's small enough to be a paper cut. Marking this as confirmed.

[Lorenzo (lorenzo-delledonne)]

Also, we should consider the CTRL+SHIFT+TAB combination for changing tabs in reverse order.

[dakota (dakotadelnorte)]

Thank you very much. Althought, I believe to remember that gnome-terminal had the same "problem".

[etapombas (brunotrazzini)]

make this default in every app (gedit, epiphany, nautilus).

[Lorenzo (lorenzo-delledonne)]

I think this issue affects the GTK+ widget that provides the tabbed container functionality.
(You can already switch between tabs with the ALT+[1-9] shortcut, but most people ignore that, as they expect the far more popular CTRL+Tab, so I think it's a real usability issue).

[Ilya Barygin (randomaction)]

Here's an old thread at Gnome Usability:
http://<email address hidden>/msg02070.html

[Ilya Barygin (randomaction)]

And a related Gnome bug: http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=87764

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

Thank you for your bug report. The issue is an upstream one and it would be nice if somebody having it could send the bug the to the people writting the software (https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Bugs/Upstream/GNOME)

[Umang Varma (umang)]

If we're going to go so far as to have Ctrl+Tab and Ctrl+Shift+Tab, Firefox users may also enjoy Ctrl+Page Up and Ctrl+Page Down. I use the later instead of the former because of its intuitiveness and ease of use. Hopefully this will be implemented in Nautilus as well.

Thanks,

Umang

[Ted M Lin (kitlaan)]

This really should be handled by GTK, as the default keystroke handler for the tabs (aka GtkNotebook) is Ctrl+PageUp and Ctrl+PageDown.

However, here is a sample patch (against nautilus 2.26.2) to get Ctrl+Tab and Ctrl+Shift+Tab to have the same functionality; it's a bit of a hack.

[naesk (naesk)]

This would be really useful feature.

Additionally, although maybe not exactly a papercut as it is more a wish, for the tabs to be detachable/tearable as in Gedit.

[tgpraveen (tgpraveen89)]

Similar bugs have been filed for empathy, gnome terminal,etc and all have been rejected as they go against GNOME HIG.

There is a nice page on current tab implementations in various gnome programs on gnome live.

i also feel a standard should be maintained and hence if ctrl+tab is to be it we should change the HIG and everything else will follow but i doubt it will be easy to convince the gnome devs.maybe for gnome 3.

but we should not go against upstream on this.

a desktop needs uniformity.

[ShawnJGoff (shawnjgoff)]

Yes, it's definitely the HIG that is the problem. I would point out that none of those apps follow the HIG anyway. According to the guidelines, if there are more than 6 tabs, you should display a list control instead. http://library.gnome.org/devel/hig-book/stable/controls-notebooks.html.en

The real problem lies in the fact that that that guideline does not apply in this type of situation. That guideline is for pages of options, not for a tabbed document interface (as an implementation of multiple document interface). There is no interface guideline for multiple document interface, much less mdi via tabs.

[David Siegel (djsiegel-deactivatedaccount)]

This is non-trivial, as it may require an addition or change to the GNOME HIG, and implementation in a fundamental component (Gtk). Marking invalid for hundredpapercuts.

[Pedro Villavicencio (pedro)]

the bug is known upstream and marked as wontfix on the nautilus task: https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=597096 ; Pleas make your comments there if you want that feature to be included, i'm closing the Ubuntu task as wontfix too to reflect the upstream status, if they re open the task we'll do the same, thanks all.

[Umang Varma (umang)]

Why will it not be fixed?

[grofaty (grofaty)]

Umang, in upstream there was written that standard in Gnome is <Ctrl>+<Page Up> and <Ctrl>+<Page Down>.
This also works in Firefox too.

But for Windows users this is something what is is not the standard, the standard is <Ctrl>+<Tab> and <Ctrl>+<Shift>+<Tab>.

If Ubuntu would like to get more Windows users then such a Windows-standard behaviour should also work. I work both on Windows and on Ubuntu and this different behaviour is just making my life harder.

[markba (mark-baaijens)]

In FF, both keyboard combo's works: Ctrl-Tab and Ctrl-PgUp/PgDn, best of both worlds?

[grofaty (grofaty)]

markba, yes in Firefox works both shortcuts and both are working in Windows and in Ubuntu. That is what I think is a good example of good usability. I would understand not to implement such a feature if <ctrl>+<tab> would be some other standard in Gnome, but it is not. So what Nautilus looses if this shortcut is implement? Nothing!

By the way, is it so hard to implement this feature just in Ubuntu, if upstream does not want to fix the bug?

[David Futcher (bobbo)]

Adding patch-rejected-upstream tag in reference to the patch in this bug against Nautilus. It is marked as won't fix in Nautilus in the GNOME bug tracker, so any changes would have to go through gtk & the HIG. Please continue discussion of this on the bug against the GNOME HIG (https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=498974). If that comes to any sort of agreement, then patches against the correct components would be welcome here.