I use tabs to switch between window configurations.
Say I code in Python, with docs and shell windows on the right. Then I want to quickly take a look at git history. But, if I start magit, it will hijack the window configuration and my carefully placed/resized windows will get messy. So, I open a new tab and start magit there. Now, I can switch between the two tabs - ie. window/buffer layouts - with a single key.
The fact that I mention saving the layout of windows should hint that I know you can do this in vanilla Emacs by saving and restoring window configurations, but it's much less hassle with tabs. Also, you can hide tab bar (as well as menu bar and button bar) when you don't need it, and it's actually quite handy when you do need it.
To each their own of course, just saying there are good uses for tabs in Emacs, unless you want to delegate this to your WM and launch one frame per window config.
> To each their own of course, just saying there are good uses for tabs in Emacs, unless you want to delegate this to your WM
You mention window configurations, and you say " it's much less hassle with tabs." You can assign a single key to switch between window configurations too and then it's practically the same, isn't it?
Yeah, not "practically", but simply "the same" - that's exactly how half of my tabs (elscreen.el) is implemented (the other half being creating, displaying and updating the "tabbar"). In other words, if you use winner mode, or have a couple of custom wrappers around window layouts and use those, you're practically already using tabs, just without a tabbar! ;)
Not frames but window configurations (the things you can save with C-x r w and restore with C-x r j), although one can also save the frame configuration too.
Say I code in Python, with docs and shell windows on the right. Then I want to quickly take a look at git history. But, if I start magit, it will hijack the window configuration and my carefully placed/resized windows will get messy. So, I open a new tab and start magit there. Now, I can switch between the two tabs - ie. window/buffer layouts - with a single key.
The fact that I mention saving the layout of windows should hint that I know you can do this in vanilla Emacs by saving and restoring window configurations, but it's much less hassle with tabs. Also, you can hide tab bar (as well as menu bar and button bar) when you don't need it, and it's actually quite handy when you do need it.
To each their own of course, just saying there are good uses for tabs in Emacs, unless you want to delegate this to your WM and launch one frame per window config.