[Nano-devel] File tabs

[markweston]

The idea is to make the title bar more useful. Currently it's showing:
* The GNU nano version, which I find useful extremely rarely, even when 
I do need it I end up typing "nano -V" just because of old habits I got 
from all the other programs.
* Buffer index, like so: [I/N].
* The filename of the current buffer (or "New Buffer").
* The state of the buffer: Modified (which could be replaced by an 
asterisk to the right of the filename, which is a modern convention), 
View (which the user probably knows since she/he probably invoked nano 
with -v, or nothing.

I found tabs, like in internet and filesystem browsers and IDEs, to make 
the title bar more useful and helpful when navigating between more than 
a couple of buffers in nano. Basically, instead of drawing the title bar 
the way we do now, we would display the list of open file filenames. 
Here's an example:

 hello.c  hello.h [main.c] Makefile*  TODO.txt  READM...

In this example, there are 6 or more file buffers open. The user is 
currently working on main.c. Makefile is currently in the modified 
state. Since the title bar in this example is too small to show all the 
filenames, you can see "..." at the end.

I most often use nano in fullscreen mode to work in local directory with 
relatively shortly-named files, so in that kind of scenario I have 
always had enough space to display all the filenames, because it can 
display more than 10 at a time.

I'm not sure what should nano do when the current buffer could not be 
displayed. Here's a slightly modified previous example:

 hello.c  hello.h  main.c  Makefile*  TODO.txt  READM...

Here the user is working on something after README. One idea to solve 
this would be

 hello.c  hello.h [main.c] Makefile*  TODO.t...[NEWS]...

Which says the user is working on the NEWS file and that there are 
skipped or unfinished filenames both in front and before NEWS. This way 
user always knows what's he working on.

Anyway, I attach a patch as an example solution, which implements the 
dumb approach (no tricks if the current filename can't be displayed will 
be performed).

0001-filetabs-1st-version.patch
Description: Text Data