ithinc wrote:braveheartleo wrote:Another thing about the Locked tab appearance options: If the default appearance for Locked tabs, when the style options for it is disabled, is placing a red outline around the tab, then perhaps this should be reflected in the options too. Because that part of the appearance options is being some kind of a WYSIWYG editor, then showing the default shouldn't be bad.
This may be considered, but how do you think of the default style for protected tabs? Should I remove protected tabs from the styling section?
Since we might be looking at revamping the presentation of this section in the appearance options, let me offer my full treatment of the details:
I think I would drop all current implementation and go for a minimalistic and consistent approach throughout the different tab modes (Pinned, Faviconized, or Normal tab) when dealing with Lock and Protect tab functions. If it is possible, I would place small dot icons at the top right corner of the tab, positioning it on the tab's top edge border and flushed right to the corner. Each dot would depict a color, like blue for Protected or red for Locked. I'm not much of a designer so it may be up to you, but I would go for whole-colored dot icons.
Dot icons order would be Protected icon first if enabled, else it is not displayed, then followed by the icon for Locked, also not displayed if disabled. So if both Protected and Locked are inactive, then no icons are displayed. Conversely, both icons are displayed in order when both functions are active. Also, you might want to disable or hide the close button for Normal tabs when Locked is active, apart from disabling the close tab menu item and shortcut keys.
In this way, the implementation for Protected and Locked status icons is uniform across all tab modes, unlike the current implementation in which pinned tabs, faviconized tabs, and normal tabs have varying and disconnected behaviors for displaying status of the aforementioned.
The Locked and Protected appearance options would now be replaced with checkboxes to enable or disable displaying icons for the two. You might also want to enable customizing colors for the two icons, for those who would like to mix and match the icon colors with their browser themes. Then what remain are tab styling options for Current, Read, and Unread tabs. In my opinion, I would remove the outline styling option for all styles, as it doesn't look good on the tab bar.
It's up to you how you will arrange the option presentation, but I would suggest, for a minimal approach, to offer the two checkboxes inside the appearance options, and a button that will display a dialog box for configuring tab styles, all grouped accordingly.
Please let me know your opinion on my suggestions.
P.S.
I noticed that the "use small icon" checkbox has been removed. Good riddance.
