In Gedit, ctrl-n should open a new document in a new window, not in a new tab

Nautilus opens a new tab with ctrl+t, like Firefox.

Lightbreeze, I agree. I just commented that in Nautilus the order in menu is different that in the most applications. So in Nautilus is the first option "New Tab" and second "New Window" - most applications has this two switched by default. See for example Firefox.

Okay.
Issue regarding Gedit: Bug #301942

Yes, it looks the same. If I summaries:

1. Shortcuts
a) new document in new window shortcut should be <CTRL>+N in any Gnome application
b) new document in new window shortcut should be <CTRL>+T in any Firefox application

2. Order in File menu:
There should always be first "new window" and second "new tab" like in Firefox.

My mistake in previous post. The b) should be:
b) new document in new tab shortcut should be <CTRL>+T in any Firefox application

It does seem to be a convention that "New Window" comes before "New Tab."

To add another one to the list. Ctrl+Shift+T opens a new tab in the gnome-terminal

rCX, that is true. There was a discussion on this topic, see my Brainstorm link in my first post of this bug report. In gnome-terminal there is reason for this shortcut because in terminal can run application that already uses this shortcut in its own application. So this would make some problems.

Maybe there should be exception for terminal applications. I actually never use tabbing in Terminal because I always need both windows to be displayed on one screen - what I miss in Terminal is some windows tile-ing (two or more windows displayed on the same program) and tools bar to easy select some options. But this is not directly related to this bug report...

I'd propose something like:

Ctrl + N = new Document: look up user prefs if he/she wants to use tabs or not (which in apps that use tabs should default to "yes")
Ctrl + T = Allways open new tab (overriding user prefs)
Ctrl + Shift + N = Allways open new window (as shift points to the next-higher structure: document -> window)

this way the default Ctrl+T of FX would not break but we would get a good set of rules imo that is logically thought through.

I think there is an important difference between Gedit and Firefox or Nautilus. With Gedit, you aren't opening a new tab that is blank. With CTRL+N, you are creating a new document. With CTRL+T you are opening a blank tab with which to view a URI. There is no concept of opening a blank tab with no document in Gedit, as a tab with no text area would be nonsensical.

Every other platform does things this way- CTRL+N means Create -N-ew, and CTRL+T means Open New -T-ab.

In my opinion, Nautilus and Firefox should have the same behavior with CTRL+T and SHIFT+CTRL+T. But Gedit should be left alone.

Is it feasible to address the graphic part in this papercut, as that's also inconsistent: whether tab bar is shown, etc,?

If we take Firefox, gedit and nautilus as examples, IMO it should be this:

Tab bar shown by default (Nautilus is the only one not doing this now)
No close buttons for only a single tab open (gedit needs fixed, and nautilus isn't showing the tab bar in this case)
and >1 tab means close buttons should appear on all tabs
A new icon should be put to the right of the furthest-right tab, in all cases, indicating that's how to open a new one. (Firefox is doing this, nautilus and gedit are not)

Optional: a way of visually displaying all open tabs in an app.

I'm replacing this paper cut in its milestone with bug #301942, the solution to which is to make ctrl-t open a new tab in gedit.

I will update this bug to mention the ctrl-n inconsistency. Is thatt okay with you, grofaty?

I don't think this can be considered a paper cut (unlike the similar bug #301942). It involves changing a prominent shortcut and should be coordinated with upstream.

Hey, I realize that this concept of changing the shortcut keys is still under consideration, but if you (grofaty) wanted it to be changed for the time being, here's a debdiff.

David Siegel, I think it simple:
1. ctrl-n should open new window
2. ctr-t should open new tab

grofaty, no. Gedit is not a browser. Ctrl-N means »New document«, not »New window«.

Tobias, that argument has nothing to do with /users/. I'm not saying that you're wrong or right, I just want to make it clear that at the end of the day, it's the /users/ that matter and we need to figure out what keyboard shortcuts satisfy /users/, and not what keyboard shortcuts satisfy our abstract ideas about what a Browser is and what a Text Editor is and how a Browser is different from a Text Editor, and which type of application did what first way back when.

We all agree that keyboard shortcuts should be consistent. That means that Ctrl-N should basically do the same thing regardless of context (i.e. which application is active when you press it). The same goes for Ctrl-T. Now, we are faced with two pieces of functionality here, one is primary and the other is secondary. The primary piece of functionality is tabs. It is primary because more tabs are opened than windows in any given application with tabs and windows (if tabs are not used at all, these numbers are the same). Now, Ctrl-T is a very nice shortcut for opening a new tab, do we agree on that? It seems that many applications supporting tabs use it. In fact, I cannot think of a tabbed application that uses a different shortcut for tab creation (besides gedit). You seem to be upset that browsers have established a convention here, but face it, they have. Stubbornly boycotting this convention will only serve to disappoint users and make us all look bad.

So, Ctrl-T means open a new tab. If you want to dispute that, I'm really not sure what ground you have to stand on really.

Now, there's the issue of opening a new window. In general, Ctrl-N means "new <something>", as we agree. Now, if Ctrl-T creates new Tabs, and it seems poor design to assign two user-visible features with different names and two separate keyboard shortcuts to the same functionality, we have to find a reasonable interpretation of Ctrl-N in the context of gedit that is not equivalent to creating a new tab. We're left the option of assigning no meaning to this shortcut, or making Ctrl-N create a new document (in a new window). I think the latter is clearly more consistent with Ctrl-N as used in other applications, and as specified in the HIG.

David Siegel, the primary function is to start a new document. It just so happens that it is opened in a new tab. The tab is secondary. This is where we disagree.

Starting something new is on Ctrl-N in the majority of programs, both in Gnome and on alternative platforms.

When Mozilla introduced tabs the shortcut Ctrl-N was taken for opening a new window. This was taken over from Netscape days. So bolted on tabs and took the free Ctrl-T shortcut.

Anyway, if you want to maximize consistency all across the board you have to leave «New document» at Ctrl-N. Almost all programs have a function for starting something new, and it is almost always on Ctrl-N. Only a fraction of programs even have tabs.

I think that is very convincing.

BTW, Opera had tabs before Mozilla, and they had »New Page« (viz. tab) on Ctrl-N as well. For years. Only when they came up with the same thought that you propose now they caved in and moved it to Ctrl-T as well.

But this story here is different.