So, the following is an example of what you can expect with tab colorization. I'm using randomized colors so the look is less than optimal, of course.

The first sample is how the theme looks without tab colorization, the second using hue shift and the third tint (hue shift is more subtle).

Hue shift does nothing on themes with gray tabs (like the one at the very bottom, so for those you must use Tint)

I think this is the type of thing you would use only once you've settled in a favorite theme, so that the colors you choose for the tabs are optimal for that theme. The same sequence of colors might not work so well (or at all) with another theme.

Continuing from a conversation in 'Winstep Wishlist' which is more appropriate here :

Just following team orders.

Personally, I just don't like any colourisations, and for that matter, any alterations to a theme that somebody has taken the trouble to create, as stated in the post you quote/refer to. A user should either like it or lump it and pick another one.

I can understand that the multi-tab option would be a lot of work for you Jorge, no doubt about that, and yes, users would have quite a wait ahead for some themes using this option to come along. I just suggested that from a creative point it would be the lesser of two evils.

When it comes to user choice, the two choices he should have should be either to use a given theme as is or pick another one. Simple. More than enough choice.

LOL! Heck yeah, what the hell why not?

Ouch! Sorry, no, a "glow" around the bitmaps sounds even worse.

Too much choice is never a good thing. For proof of that just look at the sheer madness of our hyper-consumerist society and its consequences. Too many choices everywhere. KISS should be a guiding principle in just about everything. Just KISS - keep it simple, stupid! As I mentioned earlier, two choices are ample for theme users - don't like a theme as is choose another. And even then one could argue that even that is too much already, and that the app's designer should have provided a look and feel set in stone. (Which of course applies to the vast and overwhelming majority of apps anyway, thank goodness, good or bad appearance. And most Linux distros don't give the user much if any choice regarding the appearance of the GUI. However, just look at the disastrous number of different Linux distros - and often their many different flavours as well! - and it''s not surprising that the average Joe is bewildered by the choices and often just gives up, alas!)

Bear in mind that the average human is an idiot to put it mildly. The more choices you give him to change a theme the more he's going to f**k up the look, and all in the worst possible taste. Don't forget, if it wasn't for bad taste a hell of a lot of people would have none at all!

Few themes are that plain and simple though. In any event, I just don't like the whole thing so I'll just keep shtumm on it hereafter.

I completely disagree with this. I think users should have total liberty to make variations of an existing theme (and isn't that how almost every skinner started?) provided he doesn't go public with it and try to pass the forked theme as his own (unless he has written permission from the original theme author and gives proper credit, of course).

This is no different.

Besides, doing this through different tab bitmaps has zero advantage since the actual bitmaps would all be the same, the only variation would be the color - the application is just saving the theme author the work of re-coloring the bitmaps in Photoshop himself, and providing a larger choice of potential colors and colorization methods while doing so.

Again, for me the main advantage is a functional one, it's much faster and easier to locate a specific tab by color than by the title, especially if you have a shelf with a ton of tabs (mine has 22, for instance lol although I normally only use a small subset of those)

Ahah, sorry, in retrospect I recognize it was indeed phrased more like an order than a request, but that was not my intention. My toddler was playing here in the office while I was typing that and I had to hit Submit quickly as he was forcefully requesting my full attention lol

LOL! Whoa, nah, don't fret Jorge, I didn't mean that I took it to be an 'order', relax my friend. It was meant humorously, nothing more.

Looks like the little fellow's got you wrapped around his little finger!

Not that I'd compare any theme to a great work of art per se, but all the same, altering a theme in any way to my way of thinking is like trying to improve the Mona Lisa - and you're likely to end up by adding a mustache!

But of course, I also see your point, Jorge. And I wouldn't even consider asking for multi-tabs in earnest. I think the maximum number of tabs I ever used might have been about 7, BTW.

I think that it will depend on the theme.

I have no issue with applying different colours to different tabs, provided you can choose what they are - this could enable grouping of associated sets.

However the ability to see which is the active tab is key - in some of the pictures above it is not immediately obvious which tab is active.

If by multi-tabs you mean multiple tab lines on the workshelf, probably with each tab set offset from the one above (similar to folders in a filing cabinet drawer, or a card deck), then I could see the benefit of that if you have a lot of tabs!

My workshelf has 11 tabs, and I could possibly add another one without ruining readability (this is on a 24" monitor at 1900x1200 with a reasonable size font - for me). I can't imagine how Jorge has 22 unless he has a huge, high res monitor, with relatively small text (unless he has very small tab descriptions - and even then!). So in that sort of case I could see how multiple tab lines would be useful.

However I suspect that this would involve a lot of effort - to either reskin themes, or to come up with a method to allow the themes title bars to be replicated and shifted. Not even sure if that is possible (as I don't know much about creating / skinning themes) - so you would be back to effort on both fronts.

I agree. But mostly because you don't know the themes. In those examples the active tab is actually NEVER colorized. I'm still debating whether to keep it like that—it really depends on how much the colorization affects the ability to identify the active tab. Perhaps I will simply add this as an option.



Two 43" 4K monitors at 100% DPI (one IPS the other OLED).



I literally wrote three (!) lines of code to implement this new tab colorization method, the one that generated the tab colorization examples above. That's why I jumped on this idea so quickly, it's low hanging fruit for me. Low effort, high reward.

What will actually take longer is adding the dialog with the new settings for this. The code that makes all this work is basically already there, so far used for other stuff.

Below is the wire frame mockup for this dialog after throwing ideas around with CoPilot about it (forget the Reset and Apply to All features though, not planning on using that). Besides this dialog, each Tab Properties dialog will also have a color well for that tab so you can change it there directly too (although the actual colorization method can only be set in the dialog below).