The tabs on BeOS windows have been well known for their distinctive sliding ability. This could be extended by allowing extended areas for sliding, sticky tabs and fusing tabs.
Details
Sliding
Tabs should be allowed to slide all the way around the perimeter of any window, including hugging the corners of the window.
Sticking
When placed in close proximity tabs in different windows will snap together, bringing the windows together. When this occurs on the side edges of tabs this would result in an arrangment similar to general tabbed interfaces.
Fusing
When placed on top of each other tabs would combine together and in that fashion couple the two windows together.
Combinations
The strength of this technique lies in the ability to combine multiple windows in a manner more useful to the user.
Issues
- How easy is this for the user to actually work with? Is it more coherent? Or just cool?
- How are tabs separated once stuck or fused?
References
- Tabs - Isn't there more we can do with them?
- Fluxbox can do similar things.