Minimum Tab Width ignored?

[s_rage]

Greetings, I'm finding that any value I give "Minimum Tab Width" seems to be ignored. My tabs never change size. I've closed the program, re-opened, etc. The tab size never changes. I am a first-time user of SecureCRT and am unsure if this behavior is just broken in the latest version, or if I may be misunderstanding what it does.

Version: SecureCRT 7.0.2 / Windows 7

Has anyone else seen this behavior?

[miked]

Hello s_rage,

Welcome to SecureCRT, and to the forums. Thanks for posting your question.

Minimum Tab Width's effect can be seen when you open many tabs (enough to more than fill the width of your window). It seems to be working correctly in 7.0.2. I have attached .png files showing Minimum Tab Width set at 20 pixels and at 200 pixels.

20 pixels:


200 pixels:


The number of tabs required to fill the width of your window depends on the tab title, and window width. Let's say you have an 80 column window, and a window title that's about 20 characters. Opening 4 tabs would just about fill the window width. Opening a dozen or more would clearly extend beyond the window width. That's the scenario shown in the attached image MinimumTabWidth-200.png. You'll only see 4 tabs because I set Mimimum Tab Width to 200. Changing Minimum Tab Width to 20 shows you how many tabs can be displayed, in attached MinimumTabWidth-20.png.

Does this help show the expected behavior?

Is this the behavior you are seeing?

What behavior were you expecting?

[s_rage]

Thank you. I believe I understand what the behavior SHOULD be: if I set Minimum Tab Width to 200, the size of each tab should never be less than that. Is that accurate?

I'm not seeing that, though. As mentioned, my tabs never change size. A screenshot is attached.

[miked]

Yes, the size of each tab's text should never be fewer pixels than what you set. If your tabs had names longer than three characters it might facilitate seeing the Minimum Tab Width effect.

Still, three characters is enough to see the effect if you have enough tabs to fill the window width. If you open enough tabs to fill the width of your window (say another 15-20 of the tabs you currently have), you can begin to experiment with Minimum Tab Width and see what it does.

[s_rage]

Okay, understood. The part I didn't realize was that this setting is only used if the tabs stretch all the way across the full window horizontally, and is otherwise ignored.

As you can see, my tabs are pretty narrow and can be hard to click as a consequence. My intention with this setting was to widen them all for that reason. But I see that's not the intended use. Thank you very much for your quick answers.

[miked]

Thanks for clarifying - now I completely understand your goal as well.

I've added your messages to our request database and we'll post a follow up message to this forum thread if a future release of SecureCRT provides a mechanism to force the tab width to a minimum size regardless of whether or not the tabs fill the window width.

Are you interested in finding a way to name tabs such that the tabs are wider?

For example, in Session Options / Terminal / Appearance / Window, if you add spaces the tab name will be wider. You might use something like " %H " in the Title bar entry box. If the server is naming the tab through an escape sequence, there are ways to work with that (or block it) as well.

[Maureen]

The ability to configure a specific width for session tabs has been added to a pre-beta version of SecureCRT. If you'd like to try it, please email me at Maureen.Jett@vandyke.com.

Maureen

[adamreiswig]

Originally Posted by s_rage

Okay, understood. The part I didn't realize was that this setting is only used if the tabs stretch all the way across the full window horizontally, and is otherwise ignored.

As you can see, my tabs are pretty narrow and can be hard to click as a consequence. My intention with this setting was to widen them all for that reason. But I see that's not the intended use. Thank you very much for your quick answers.

This is really counter intuitive behavior. It should either be minimum at all times or say "Minimum, only when tabs fill window" or something. I tried for an hour with every config combination I could come up with to make the minimum work as I would expect it to, only to give up in frustration. Also, a maximum size would be great too (at all times, not when the window is filled with tabs!).

[jdev]

Originally Posted by adamreiswig

This is really counter intuitive behavior. It should either be minimum at all times or say "Minimum, only when tabs fill window" or something. I tried for an hour with every config combination I could come up with to make the minimum work as I would expect it to, only to give up in frustration. Also, a maximum size would be great too (at all times, not when the window is filled with tabs!).

Sorry for the frustration caused by these options. You're right; they are not intuitive.

In your case, what specific problem are you trying to solve, or what specific behavior are you wanting to achieve when it comes to tab size in SecureCRT?

If you turn *off* the Minimum option, do you get the behavior you want?

[adamreiswig]

Ok, I actually had a nice little write up here and when I went to post it I got the login prompt because your very outdated forums had timed me out. I lost my work. When logged in, I went to "quick links" -> "Subscribed Threads" and got the below message. I'm not trying to configure anything, I just want to go to where the link is stating! Geez.

"you do not have permission to access this page. This could be due to one of several reasons:

Your user account may not have sufficient privileges to access this page. Are you trying to edit someone else's post, access administrative features or some other privileged system?
If you are trying to post, the administrator may have disabled your account, or it may be awaiting activation."

So frustrating. Anyhow, I'd like the behavior the name implies. Not to be snippy but that seems really obvious to me from my last post. Don't say "minimum" if you don't really mean it or there are additional unstated conditions. On top of this, after playing with tab appearances for a very long time I've found that there are options that either work against each other or just don't work together and there is no indication why. I don't know if coding tabs has it's own issues but from a user perspective, it's been the most frustrating aspect of using SecureCRT. Which is to say, it's over all great product and I love it but spending all day in it I just wish I had more predictable control over tab names.

Thanks for your time.

[jdev]

Originally Posted by adamreiswig

Ok, I actually had a nice little write up here and when I went to post it I got the login prompt because your very outdated forums had timed me out. I lost my work.

Sorry that happened to you.

How long were you in composition mode, approximately?

Originally Posted by adamreiswig

When logged in, I went to "quick links" -> "Subscribed Threads" and got the below message. I'm not trying to configure anything, I just want to go to where the link is stating! Geez.

"you do not have permission to access this page. This could be due to one of several reasons:

Your user account may not have sufficient privileges to access this page. Are you trying to edit someone else's post, access administrative features or some other privileged system?
If you are trying to post, the administrator may have disabled your account, or it may be awaiting activation."

So frustrating.

With the amount of bogus accounts that get created for the purpose of posting SPAM or other content that distracts from the purpose of these forums, we have put specific mechanisms in place to try and mitigate certain activity. New accounts don't have many permissions until the account is fully vetted. Now that your account has been vetted, I don't think you'll have any further issues attempting to see what threads you've subscribed to. If you do experience any further problems with accessing your subscribed threads view or anything else in the forums, please let me know.

Originally Posted by adamreiswig

Anyhow, I'd like the behavior the name implies. Not to be snippy but that seems really obvious to me from my last post. Don't say "minimum" if you don't really mean it or there are additional unstated conditions.

I understand your complaint about the options here not being intuitive, and I've created a feature request on your behalf to disambiguate the user interaction associated with tab sizes, and the option names themselves.

Since I don't have any ETA as to a) when this work might ever begin, b) how long the process might take, or c) if the end result will even meet your needs, I was hoping you might share with me more information about the problem(s) you're trying to solve because if I knew what your objectives were in terms of outcome there's a possibility I might help you get there.

Let's start with this feedback you provided...

Originally Posted by adamreiswig

...after playing with tab appearances for a very long time I've found that there are options that either work against each other or just don't work together and there is no indication why.

Is the Minimum option here the only one you've concluded works against each other (itself), or are there others?

If there are others, would you please provide specifics so that we can work to track down the problems with those other options?

Next, you provided a small clue as to something akin to stating one aspect of a problem...

Originally Posted by adamreiswig

...I just wish I had more predictable control over tab names.

The idea of having "more predictable control over tab names" doesn't relate directly to the Minimum tab width (other than making space available for tab names; but that's not control over the tab names themselves).

What specific "control over tab names" are you looking for?

• Do tab names change out from underneath you unexpectedly?
  
• Are your tab names too long to fit in the available width of the tab?
  
• What else can you share about this specific issue (wanting more control over tab names)?

--Jake

[adamreiswig]

I'm sorry, I'm done. I was at work, where I use SecureCRT and wrotea reply between work tasks and I hit preview post without thinking about it and again lost my reply. I'm done. This is such a 2005 issue to be having on forums. I'm sure this is just an afterthought because your devs have better thing to spend their time on but man...

[jdev]

Originally Posted by adamreiswig

I'm sorry, I'm done. I was at work, where I use SecureCRT and wrotea reply between work tasks and I hit preview post without thinking about it and again lost my reply. I'm done. This is such a 2005 issue to be having on forums. I'm sure this is just an afterthought because your devs have better thing to spend their time on but man...

Use of these public forums is not our primary mechanism for providing support.

If you feel up to it, I would encourage you to use email: support@vandyke.com

--Jake