I find DTPO and OS settings related to tabs to be confusing and conflictual. I don’t know if I have any specific recommendations, needs, or requests, but I wanted to document how confusing I find these settings to be. By drawing attention to my troubles and confusion, I hope that maybe some work can be put towards simplifying or improving the consistency of tabs in DTPO
ASSUMPTIONS:
I have had “Enable Tabbed Browsing” on in DEVONthink’s preferences.
I use list view.
I have “Prefer Tabs when opening Documents” set to “Always” in System Preferences>Dock
Recently, I’ve been finding it useful to take advantage of macOS’s OS-wide tab capabilities introduced with (Sierra? El Capitan? I can’t remember now). However, I’ve found that this can result in somewhat complicated and unpredictable scenarios in DEVONthink.
Lets work off this screenshot:
Two Tier Tabs
In this screenshot there are two “OS tabs” (the top tabs that looks like native macOS tabs a la Finder/Safari), and two DEVONthink tabs (the ones we’re used to seeing in DTPO).
- The first OS tab was created when I opened the markdown file that is currently active in the screenshot.
- I then ⌘-clicked the link in that markdown document, which opened the linked file (a PDF) in a separate DTPO tab, which means I now have 1 OS tab and 2 DTPO tabs.
- I returned to a main DTPO window to locate a second PDF file, which I double clicked, producing the second macOS tab.
So I have one window, with two OS tabs, under one of which I have a further two DTPO tabs.
This is reasonably comprehendible insofar as we can think of the OS tabs as “workspace” or “context” tabs which link together related documents (e.g., documents opened from within another document) and which are represented by DTPO tabs and only accessible under its specific OS tab.
But is this two-tier system really necessary? Personally I find it more confusing than helpful since not all tabs are visible at any given time. DTPO tabs are hidden any time you are not in the parent OS tab.
It also raises questions about the results of certain keyboard commands:
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⌘-w will close the OS tab or the DTPO tab? (the answer is it starts with DTPO tabs, then moves to OS tabs, but this is not self-evident without experimentation)
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⌘-{ or ⌘-} moves to the next tab, but if you have DTPO tabs, it will not move between OS tabs. If you move from an OS tab that has no DTPO tabs an OS tab with DTPO tabs, you become “stuck” in that OS tab since the keyboard commands affect DTPO not OS tabs at this point.
Unpredictable Open Behaviours
It’s also unclear where a file is going to open (when “enable tabbed browsing” is ON) :
- Click on a link to a file within another file, it opens and replaces the currently visible file.
- ⌘-click on a link to a file within another file, it opens in a DTPO tab
- “Open in a new tab” on a link to a file within another file, it opens in a DTPO tab
- Open a file from a DTPO window, it opens in an OS tab
- “Open in Tab” a file from DTPO window, it opens in an OS tab
Things are equally murky when when “enable tabbed browsing” is OFF:
- Click on a link to a file within another file, it opens and replaces the currently visible file. (SAME AS ABOVE)
- ⌘-click on a link to a file within another file, it opens and replaces the currently visible file. (DIFFERENT)
- “Open in a new tab” on a link to a file within another file, it opens in a DTPO tab. (SAME)
- Open a file from a DTPO window, it opens in an OS tab. (SAME)
- “Open in Tab” a file from DTPO window, it opens in an OS tab. (SAME)
(And we haven’t even documented what happens when the OS-level tab preference is set to “never”)
In both cases, it is impossible to open a file from a link in an entirely new window, and since DTPO tabs have different behaviour from OS tabs (see below), you can’t tear the newly created DTPO tabs off to its own window.
OS tabs and DTPO tabs also behave differently, which is confusingly inconsistent:
- OS tabs can be re-ordered
- OS tabs can be torn off to create a new window
- DTPO tabs cannot be re-ordered
- DTPO tabs cannot be torn off to create a new window
This system also takes up a lot of visual space, since now you have TWO tab bars instead of one.
If this all seems difficult to follow and confusing, then you are right! While I will probably get to know what will open in which tab and when, at the moment (especially now that I’ve gone through and documented every possible outcome), I’m still always at the edge of my seat, unsure what the outcome will be.
It also results in some frustrating incapabilities. Being completely unable to open documents from links in their own window is problematic for instances where this might be desirable, and is inconsistent with the experience most other parts of macOS.
A document opened from a link will always be trapped in the second tab tier as well, locked into its parent OS/contextual tab, which makes it inaccessible if the user moves to a different OS tab that may well be related.
Taken together, the current DTPO and macOS behaviours and options means that users can really get themselves into a mess and I think, overall, is not a universally positive experience. I realize that most of this confusion is the result of the (not terribly) new macOS tab options, so not initially the fault of DTPO. However, I hope that sooner rather than later DTPO is updated to offer a more consistent experience in light of the changes to the OS.
Phew, what a whirlwind.