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The most offensive part of Tabs to me: > If you download or print from Google Docs, you'll only download or print the active tab. If you want to download or pr

The most offensive part of Tabs to me: > If you download or print from Google Docs, you'll only download or print the active tab. If you want to download or print all tabs at once, you can do it from Google Drive This is multiple documents, barely/mildly organized. I have yet to see someone use these tabs at work though, so maybe everyone is rejecting them as poorly implemented organization. What am I missing about Tabs? "document-based workflows" are a good idea[0] but I think this is a terrible execution of it. [0]: https://web.archive.org/web/20040625150625/https://www.edwardtufte.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=00001o&topic_id=1&topic=Ask%20E.T https://web.archive.org/web/20040625150625/https://www.edwar....

stuartjohnson12 2y ago
The hamfisted attempts to ram new features into docs/excel recently have made me wince. It's like (read: it's because) they're afraid to change the winning formula, so any new feature is buried in some submenu and is treated as a 2nd class citizen throughout. They then try to surface these new features via a suggestions pane which is doomed to irritate users because it feels like you're doing something complicated when you try and use it, and half the time it causes standard functionality to not work as you'd expect.
- crazygringo 2y ago
  It's crazy to me, half the people on HN complain about Docs being stagnant and not adding enough new features, and then the other half complain about too many new features? It's like there's no winning. FYI, tabs are not "buried in some submenu", they're shown on every new document. They're not "treated as a 2nd class citizen throughout", they're an obvious "1st class" feature.
bckr 2y ago
Tabs are great for simple, project doc stuff like separating long running actions lists from meeting notes
crazygringo 2y ago
"Offensive" seems a bit harsh, no? It's the same concept as tabs in Sheets/Excel, which I've never heard anybody complain about. It's a nice UX to be able to focus on one thing rather than deal with scrolling. E.g. one tab for agenda items, another for meeting notes, another for action items assigned to people. But also for things like chapters, where a document is just too long for scrolling otherwise. And the reality is that probably 99% of Docs never get printed or downloaded/converted. If an org uses Google, everything usually just stays a Doc, except occasionally when dealing with external folks. (I do find it a bit weird that you have to go to Drive to print/convert all tabs at once, but it's not exactly difficult. Still, I hope that will get fixed at some point.)

stuartjohnson12 2y ago

The hamfisted attempts to ram new features into docs/excel recently have made me wince. It's like (read: it's because) they're afraid to change the winning formula, so any new feature is buried in some submenu and is treated as a 2nd class citizen throughout. They then try to surface these new features via a suggestions pane which is doomed to irritate users because it feels like you're doing something complicated when you try and use it, and half the time it causes standard functionality to not work as you'd expect.

crazygringo 2y ago
It's crazy to me, half the people on HN complain about Docs being stagnant and not adding enough new features, and then the other half complain about too many new features? It's like there's no winning. FYI, tabs are not "buried in some submenu", they're shown on every new document. They're not "treated as a 2nd class citizen throughout", they're an obvious "1st class" feature.

bckr 2y ago

Tabs are great for simple, project doc stuff like separating long running actions lists from meeting notes

crazygringo 2y ago

"Offensive" seems a bit harsh, no? It's the same concept as tabs in Sheets/Excel, which I've never heard anybody complain about. It's a nice UX to be able to focus on one thing rather than deal with scrolling. E.g. one tab for agenda items, another for meeting notes, another for action items assigned to people. But also for things like chapters, where a document is just too long for scrolling otherwise. And the reality is that probably 99% of Docs never get printed or downloaded/converted. If an org uses Google, everything usually just stays a Doc, except occasionally when dealing with external folks. (I do find it a bit weird that you have to go to Drive to print/convert all tabs at once, but it's not exactly difficult. Still, I hope that will get fixed at some point.)