Author Topic: IDEA: Tabbed interface for Microsoft Word (Read 20,576 times)

sri · « **on:** September 29, 2006, 04:24 AM »

It would be really handy if there's a free plugin or a program which puts tabs MS Word so within one interface (window), I can have multiple documents open.

I came to know about 2 such commercial programs from JavaJones:

1) http://www.intellitabs.com/featuresWord.html

2) http://www.officeboosters.com/wtmain.htm

If this is relatively easy to develop, it could be extended to Excel and Powerpoint as well.

Does anyone also see the benefits of this?

JavaJones · « **Reply #1 on:** October 02, 2006, 07:37 PM »

I definitely see the benefit and I'm frankly surprised no such freeware extenders/apps exist. I didn't even find any Word-compatible freeware editors that do this! That surprised me perhaps even more. I would expect for example OpenOffice to do this. As memory size increases and dual core CPU's become more prevalent, more and more people are multi-tasking and becoming "power users". This clutters up our task bars. Our work processes also tend to be "modal" - if we're editing documents, we probably want access to all the documents we're editing at a given time; they don't likely need to be individually accessible in our increasingly cluttered task bar. Tabbing may not make sense for all apps, but I definitely think it does in this and many other multi-document workflow cases.

- Oshyan

n0name_04 · « **Reply #2 on:** October 07, 2006, 01:44 PM »

well, definetly it's a good idea, especially for me who works on multiple documents.students with research work will really benefit from this idea. just imagine opening all your research sources in doc form and then combining it on one document all in the same window - that's is sure one neat idea. hope someone will do the program(for freeware

).

TucknDar · « **Reply #3 on:** October 07, 2006, 01:58 PM »

All apps should have this feature, IMO! Mmmmm... MDI!

app103 · « **Reply #4 on:** October 07, 2006, 04:31 PM »

Someone emailed me a link to something that might be what you are looking for:

http://www.wintabber.com

Quote

What is WinTabber ?

Do you get frustrated trying to find the right window on your desktop, or with alt-tab but they all look the same?
WinTabber may be the answer ....

WinTabber can add tabs to many windows. A tabbed browser ,tabbed putty , tabbed terminal or tabbed shell, tabbed anything. Multi tab your windows in seconds. A terminal or shell with tabs work faster and efficiently! Having multiple windows as tabs will give a better overview of your windows than before. Also having multiple ssh sessions by the click of a tab works faster and efficiently.

Might be what I need for filling this request too: http://www.donationcoder.com/forum/index.php?topic=4629.0

I haven't tried it yet but I will.

JavaJones · « **Reply #5 on:** October 07, 2006, 08:00 PM »

Wow, Wintabber looks really cool, and free! Great find app.

- Oshyan

nudone · « **Reply #6 on:** October 08, 2006, 05:20 AM »

fantastic find, app.

the program is a bit buggy, but it's the best thing i've seen so far for the job.

looking forward to seeing the developer go on to improve it. time to click on his paypal button i think...

sri · « **Reply #7 on:** October 08, 2006, 05:28 AM »

I'm aware of WinTabber and when I tried it long time back (it was mentioned in downloadsquad), I think I felt it somehow not quite ready for the job. I will give it a try again.

nudone · « **Reply #8 on:** October 08, 2006, 05:29 AM »

it certainly is buggy.

edit.

may as well just say it's unusable. too much conflict with the rest of the operating system. how unfortunate.

app103 · « **Reply #9 on:** October 08, 2006, 11:31 AM »

Quote from: nudone on October 08, 2006, 05:29 AM

it certainly is buggy.

edit.

may as well just say it's unusable. too much conflict with the rest of the operating system. how unfortunate.

Yeah...my thoughts after trying it, too. But I'll keep my eyes on this one, for sure. It's exactly what I was thinking of when I made my request for an app that could tab a bunch of windows for me.

So if he can get the bugs out, it will be perfect for me.

n0name_04 · « **Reply #10 on:** October 10, 2006, 11:07 PM »

yeah great find! i think wintabber has potential too

, but what do you mean by "buggy" guys? do you mean that it crashes your system, or it's just lacking on features?

, hope someone will make a similar app and improve it,

Carol Haynes · « **Reply #11 on:** October 10, 2006, 11:34 PM »

You could try DocuBar which adds a button bar to access multiple documents (similar to tabs really)

See http://www.cdev.co.uk/utils.htm#Docubar

lanux128 · « **Reply #12 on:** October 11, 2006, 01:15 AM »

has anyone tried this -> Jedi Window Dock? it is part of Software Jedi's programming marathon.

Josh · « **Reply #13 on:** October 11, 2006, 03:31 AM »

Quick question, wouldnt it be possible to do this using the MS Word control provided with MS Office and a tab control? I mean, it would take some tweaking to get certain features working properly, but it doesnt sound like a hard app to code if this method would work.

nudone · « **Reply #14 on:** October 11, 2006, 06:43 AM »

Quote from: n0name_04 on October 10, 2006, 11:07 PM

yeah great find! i think wintabber has potential too , but what do you mean by "buggy" guys? do you mean that it crashes your system, or it's just lacking on features? , hope someone will make a similar app and improve it,

what i meant by "buggy" was that it became more trouble than it was worth. it would lose a window that was inside it - like i had closed the window, it had strange window resizing issues - that could be because i have 'dialogmove' running though, and it did something else that i can't remember at all now but when it did it i decided there and then i wouldn't use it any further.

nudone · « **Reply #15 on:** October 11, 2006, 06:47 AM »

lanux128, just tried 'jedi window dock' seems to work quite well at the moment. one thing i noticed straight away - it doesn't have the annoying complete screen refresh that 'wintabber' did simply when clicking on a tab.

will keep it running for a while to see what happens but i'm certainly impressed so far.

lanux128 · « **Reply #16 on:** October 11, 2006, 07:10 AM »

glad you liked it, nudone. Dana is doing an awesome job. maybe after he's done with his marathon, he'll be able to tweak the apps further and add more features.

btw, there's already a mod of this program. check out the comments section for the link.

nudone · « **Reply #17 on:** October 11, 2006, 07:16 AM »

thanks, i'll try the modded version.

app103 · « **Reply #18 on:** October 11, 2006, 07:40 AM »

I have tried the Jedi Window Dock, and it seems to work well...except when you use it to tab a tabbed window or anything else mdi...it doesn't refresh properly...leaves everything ghosty.

Carol Haynes · « **Reply #19 on:** October 11, 2006, 10:52 AM »

Quote from: Josh on October 11, 2006, 03:31 AM

Quick question, wouldnt it be possible to do this using the MS Word control provided with MS Office and a tab control? I mean, it would take some tweaking to get certain features working properly, but it doesnt sound like a hard app to code if this method would work.

That's what DocuBar does (which I mentioned above and no one has commented on) - it is basically a word template that adds in a control so that an extra tool bar is generated which acts as required inside Word (ie. a tab bar - it just isn't called that).

urlwolf · « **Reply #20 on:** November 16, 2006, 06:45 PM »

Quote from: Carol Haynes on October 11, 2006, 10:52 AM

Quote from: Josh on October 11, 2006, 03:31 AM
Quick question, wouldnt it be possible to do this using the MS Word control provided with MS Office and a tab control? I mean, it would take some tweaking to get certain features working properly, but it doesnt sound like a hard app to code if this method would work.

That's what DocuBar does (which I mentioned above and no one has commented on) - it is basically a word template that adds in a control so that an extra tool bar is generated which acts as required inside Word (ie. a tab bar - it just isn't called that).

The problem with docubar (for me) is that it takes a few seconds to reload the tabbed window. The whole point for me is speed switching docs, so it defeats its purpose. But looking good otherwise.

Darwin · « **Reply #21 on:** November 16, 2006, 07:04 PM »

Don't know how I missed this thread. The officeboosters solution mentioned in the first post has both a free and a pro version. It's one download, you get the pro features for 30 days, after which they are turned off and you are left with the free version, which includes tabbed windows for Word.

I agree that this functionality should be a feature of all Office apps!