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Garconis
Garconis
Known Participant
September 27, 2012
Open for Voting

Photoshop: Better Tabs (with more "features")

  • September 27, 2012
  • 31 replies
  • 2780 views
My co-worker and I (and I would assume the majority of tabbed Photoshop users), agree that the tabs are a huge improvement over the older versions of Photoshop. But it doesn't appear a whole lot has changed with CS6. And change is what the tabs need.

Firstly, simply put, they need to work more like a browser works. Spend a day in Google Chrome and then try to use Photoshop's tabbing system. So many features are missing from Photoshop's tabs. Re-arranging tabs is possible, but quite cumbersome. If I accidentally pull a tab out of the row, it's hard to put it back into place. I can't simply drag one tab all the way to the left. I have to carefully make sure it doesn't come out of the row while I'm doing it.

Also, the tabs should shrink horizontally when there are a lot of them. Having to click the "expand" arrows to see all the tabs is quite annoying. The tabs could definitely decrease in width even more, when more tabs are present. Or even give the option to stack the tabs into multiple rows. At the very least, if I do click the expand arrow to reveal the other tabs, it would be useful to be able to drag a tab out of the list and in between the other "visible" tabs.

Lastly (for now), there really needs to be a feature that allows me to right-click on a tab and then click "close all other tabs".

Surely Photoshop's tabs were inspired my browsers such as Firefox and Chrome, so please make it work like a user would expect. Thanks!

    31 replies

    Dominik Sourcé
    Dominik Sourcé
    Inspiring
    November 25, 2020

    Please improve the tabs! Personally I find it very annoying that the tabs don't shrink so that all of them fit in the tab bar. I really don't like these overflow arrows – simply because dragging layers from one document to another is painful. The current behavior makes sense on very small screens but on big screens it would be a lot more useful if the tabs shrink. So why not make it a preference?

      A
      Anonymous
      November 25, 2020

      Totally agree. Ps tabs are painful. 

      F
      FeedbackCommunityMember
      Inspiring
      March 22, 2019
      2019 and tabs still not improved?

      I hate the way tabs get hidden in the overflow menu instead of dynamically shrinking as more tabs are added. We need an option in settings to define the minimum width a tab can shrink to before the  overflow menu kicks in. Working with multiple documents is a pain when some of your open document tabs are hidden.
        Garconis
        GarconisAuthor
        Known Participant
        September 12, 2017
        Anyone else at Adobe not find this to be a pain point?
        F
        FeedbackCommunityMember
        Inspiring
        May 11, 2017
        THIS!
        F
        FeedbackCommunityMember
        Inspiring
        June 24, 2016
        I really need more options on how to handle and manage multiple files open in Photoshop. The current setup is cumbersome and a pain to use due to long file names and extra info I do not need to see taking up valuable screen real estate. 

        I remember older versions of Photoshop where my file name bar would increase downward to accommodate all of my open files. It was easy to see, quick to use, and had no ridiculous fly out menu to mess with. Also there should be an option to sacrifice/shorten the names of the files to allow all open files to fit without being booted to the fly out menu. I just hate the fly out menu.

        It boggles my mind that there is no current work around or fix for this. I've searched Google before and was disappointed each time at the results for this problem. My annoyance has finally built to the point I feel compelled to reply on a thread that is how old on your forum here?!

        Thank you for your consideration.
          chinarabbit
          chinarabbit
          Participating Frequently
          June 11, 2016
          "If you don't like the tabs, you aren't using it properly" I imagine the indignant little shyts are saying to themselves. "This is how smart people use it, with this exact workflow, if you're doing something else you're not as smart as me. I'm a programmer, which we all know is the smartest thing on the planet"..


          That's just a problem with 99% of programmers. What they most likely need to get them to see reality is a good hard punch in the face. Maybe then they'll realize there's something out there besides their own ego.


          Ctrl + Clicking any tab should tile your entire work area with thumbnails of all tabs. It should be a locked thumbnail view. You click on a thumbnail and its layers and panels pop up to the right. Drag a layer of your choice onto any other thumbnail and release to expand that image and work on that layer. Or don't release and dragging a layer or layers or objects etc to hover over a thumbnail brings up that thumbnails layers panel where you can drag back and drop them.

          Then you can click select boxes on the thumbnails and choose to close all, move, duplicate, save, save as, delete, combine to new, or revert to saved.
          But nono.. The "pros" at adobe don't need that, so you don't either. Just follow their tutorials and like their pages and some day you can work just like them..
          grauenwölfe
          grauenwölfe
          Inspiring
          June 11, 2016
          I have a hunch that currently most of the pre-release testing methods are automated processes. Fine for certain areas but not fine for the bulk of real-world application usage.
          F
          FeedbackCommunityMember
          Inspiring
          June 11, 2016
          It's like they don't have any "power users" in-house to test the product. 
          Adobe has prerelease testers which are professionals with access to new versions and they are not adobe employees. I am in this program, but I am not sure how big impact has these testers. It does not seem to be too big. So your assertion might be true.
          Garconis
          GarconisAuthor
          Known Participant
          June 11, 2016
          ^ So sad, yet so true. I'm still baffled that they not only approved the current tabbing, but have not noticeably improved upon it since implementation. It's like they don't have any "power users" in-house to test the product.

          I really wish someone would step up to the plate to take on Photoshop...so Adobe could actually start getting nervous, instead of locking everyone into a subscription. I'm always tempted to go back to fully-paid-for versions (before the CC)... since they're essentially the same UI anyway. You know... since there is nothing useful about their so-called "cloud" anyway. I mean... they even took away syncing of settings...
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