Navigation arrows for the "Tab Bar"

[ErikJon]

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Hello, again, and thank you for allowing us to use your great program.

For two years I have often wished that TW had "navigation arrows" for the "tab bar."

In my custom module set, I have things organized into folders and subfolders. I have been blessed to have over 75 commentaries (thanks to your program and the colaboration of many users as a result of the program), but not all of my commentaries are useful to me on a daily basis. Moreover some of them address only certain books of the Bible, while others treat the whole. Some of them are not always useful for doctrinal reasons, but on other occasions they are very useful temporarily.

The same could be said for the dictionaries that I have installed. Some are topical, some are lexical, some are biographical, and so on, and therefore I have grouped, in order to save time from searching the drop-down menu every time.

Consequently, I have about thirty commentaries in one category, for frequent and daily use, and about ten dictionaries for frequent and daily use, each in its own "folder" (from the "custom module set" point of view).

But, even so, I have often thought that, instead of having to go to the drop-down menu every time, and then scan down the list until I find the next comment or dictionary entry that I want concerning the very same verse or else the very same word, it would be much simpler if the interface had your "navigation arrows" beside the folder title, allowing the user to jump instantly to the next module in line, with a mere click in either direction.

Yes, sometimes the user wants specific information from a specific source, but in that case he could use the menu option, as we all do in the current version. The problem is that, much of the time, the user is probably happy just to get a quick comment (from another commentary) or a quick definition (from another dictionary), as soon as possible, without much concern for which module the information comes from.

In fact, you have already done us the favor of including those useful navigation arrows in other parts of the window, which sometimes take us to another entry within the same module, but do not take us to the same entry in a different module, which task I perform frequently and on a daily basis--even much more than checking for another entry within the same module. Consequently, the user is already accustomed to having this feature, and would easily adapt to finding it applied to the tab bar, instead of only to the toolbar. With me, it has become a natural tendency to look for such arrows in every Bible study, only to find that they do not yet exist.

The only question I foresee is where to squeeze such arrows in.

I am attaching a screenshot with a suggested location for such arrows, but I am sure that you could come up with an evern better approach.

Perhaps there is already a keyboard shortcut that accomplishes the same task in some way? If not, perhaps one could be created until the visual item could be added to the interface. That would be a question of deciding which item in the tab bar to apply the shortcut to, I suppose.

Anyway, thanks again for your consideration, and for the use of your great program.

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[csterg]

I have to say this is something I never really thought before, thanks for taking the time to be so detailed in your suggestion. I have thought about it but I am negative, unfortunately.
There are several reasons for this (actually too many), I can explain:
- First comes the end-user complexity: this idea adds 2 extra buttons per tab/button
- Then the perceived functionality complexity! Think about the fact that a tab represents either a module or a group. The user is not really sure what the button will do in each case. I suppose that the buttons will be visible only when there is a group and the buttons will cycle through the modules contained in the group? Even if there are sub-groups?
- The extra functionality added is very small compared to the added complexity in all levels (visual, functional, programming, training)
- Such an interface example is really non-standard, and surely not 'touch-friendly' (not that the theWord is touch friendly, but i do have in mind to make some changes to allow it to be more 'tablet friendly': such small buttons would certainly not fit such a direction).
- Finally, I think that I cannot really implement such a custom solution in the interface: the effort required to do that is too large since the software library that i use for this area of the interface does not support such an arrangement: to customize it like that is almost impossible (this is a show-stopper actually).

Costas

[ErikJon]

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I understand your concern for visual simplicity.

Honestly, I did not take the time to think about how to handle the subsets within module groups. I guess that the easy rule would be, that whichever group or subgroup the user is already in, is where he must remain, to use the arrows, until he manually selects another group or subgroup. Naturally, if I am using my subset of dictionaries called "Bible dictionaries" I would likely want to stay in that subgroup anyway. Likewise, if I am using the window only for commentaries, I probably have a different window open already for the dictionaries, so I would most likely (as a typical user) use the function only to switch within the same commentary window, from one commentary to the next, within my same group or subgroup (e.g., within the group "commentaries" or else within my subgroup "favorite commentaries", "whole Bible commentaries", etc.)

If this is too complex for the moment, as you say, how about, then, making a nice-and-easy keyboard shortcut, in the meantime?

It could work ONLY for whichever tab is currently selected (which, for me, is logical). For example, CTRL+SHIFT+RIGHT ARROW would take the user to the next item alphabetically in his module group (or subgroup), whereas CTRL+SHIFT+LEFT ARROW would do the reverse, taking him backward alphabetically.

(All this is supposing that this particular shorcut has already been assigned, of course. )

Moreover, I think the feature should work in either case, in a full cyclical circle. If I am using the Gill commentary, and I go to the right, I would like to return to the As, Bs, Cs, etc., even after I hit the Zs, rather than to have to stop and then backtrack.

[csterg]

A keyboard shortcut is only a cryptic workaround for a private function, isn't it?
Think about it: a function not well documented, not well understood that everyone (including me) will forget in 1 week and will only be used by 5 people...
It doesn't really make sense,
Costas

[ErikJon]

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I am sorry.
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