Tabs is a nice addition only if it’s an option disabled by default. Otherwise it’s a regression IMO. I will explain why.
And I say that even if I’m a new (but now obsessed) Obsidian user, so I barely used the program before v1.0, when there were no tabs.
PANES are what make the Obsidian UI great and super efficient. It is super useful to be able to display / work on two or three notes at the same time on screen. Without mentioning the other panels (links, outline, local graph…) that can be activated and placed as desired.
TABS, however, are much less useful, because they just add one more way to navigate between notes in a panel, i.e. to change the note displayed on the panel. But there are already so many ways to do that quickly and efficiently without using tabs:
- by clicking a link in the note (outgoing / backlinks). Of course…
- with Navigate back <> Navigate forward
- with the quick switcher
- with starred notes
- by clicking a note node in the local graph
- from a search result
- in the Files panel
- with a shortcut
- countless ways with plugins…
Navigation with tabs is in fact VERY difficult to do with efficiency. There are too many parameters to handle that make the whole process laborious, cumbersome, often not predictable:
- some commands open in the active tab but some other in a background tab (and, if you have pinned a tab…)
- a “navigate back” and “navigate forward” different for each tab (far too complicated to use)
- names of the notes truncated in the tab header (especially when several tabs are open), so barely readable, so we click randomly in several tabs to find a note…
- we have to clean (close) the open tabs frequently to clean the place because it always ends to become a mess
- navigation between tabs not efficient: Cltr+tab or Ctrl+Shift+Tab several times, or with the mouse have to go all the way to the top of the window, click, click…
Really, I tried very hard to be efficient with tabs in browsers. But I HATE tabs actually. At the end of the day it is always nothing but a mess. The feeling to be in control of nothing.
TABS are good for just one thing (mentioned by someone before in this topic): when you have a specific project to work on with several documents, more than 3 or 4 (because otherwise it is often more practical to use PANES to display them on screen at the same time). In this case you can open the first documents in panes, then the rest in tabs. So in this case indeed tabs are efficient during the working session on the project, because the tabs don’t change! But this use case is probably quite rare for the average user.
Disable tabs by default in Obsidian is IMO desirable. Firstly to encourage users to use all the better ways available to navigate through notes (LINKS, PANES, etc.) Secondly because yes, tabs clutters the UI. Panes + tabs + panels… this becomes too much. For the average person, the UI has became quite complicated / overwhelming with the addition of tabs. I think I can’t suggest Obsidian to my old Mum and Dad anymore…
With tabs I have the feeling that Obsidian has became a browser for notes and I really don’t like that. I’m really tired of browsers and tabs. I want something else. If I’ve chosen Obsidian it is for LINKS, for PANES, for TAGS, for DATAVIEW. For something different, clever, that doesn’t promote / adhere to the navigation with tabs which is far to be efficient. When I see that there are now several new feature requests about tabs in the forum, all the usual package of bs requests about tab behavior, this makes me a bit sick…