As maintainer of Tabs I plan to deprecate it for Drupal 7 in favour of tabs support in the Elements module, see #1034690: Add a horizontal tabs element.

Rationale:

  • There's nothing special about tabs--they should be handled in a manner parallel to that of other UI elements like accordions etc.
  • Elements should follow Drupal core where possible. In the case of tabs, there are vertical tabs in Drupal 7 core so a Drupal 7 version of horizontal tabs should closely emulate what's in core, for a parallel developer experience.
  • Providing a tabs element in Elements could enable, e.g., integration modules for panels, views, etc. that are not specific to tabs but can work across a range of elements.
  • The draft vertical tabs implementation for Elements is bare bones and simple, meaning it should be easy to maintain.
  • I wrote tabs module for Drupal 4.6 IIRC and no longer provide more than minimal maintenance. No one else has stepped forward to take over. Much better a simple, stable UI element than a more complex and buggy one.
  • The extras that tabs module adds - e.g., navigation buttons between tabs - would be better generalized to apply across element types.

Implications would include:

  • Tabs no longer based on jQuery UI. See #1028424: Why a custom implementation rather than jQuery UI tabs?.
  • Work needed to get the horizontal tabs element into Elements.
  • D7 versions of modules building off of tabs would require Elements instead of tabs and need updating to the vertical tabs structure. Ideally, modules like views_tabs and panels_tabs_style would be renamed and rewritten to support multiple element types.
  • Some functionality would disappear, e.g., navigation buttons on tabs.

Please comment in this issue if you have thoughts. Thanks.

Comments

bryancasler’s picture

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klonos’s picture

Title: Deprecate Tabs module for D7 in favour of Elements » Deprecate Tabs module for D7 in favor of Elements

@nedjo: ...why not merge completely and have the features of 6.x implemented in the respective version of Elements as well? You can offer to become a co-maintainer there and help Dave and Heine out ;)

I understand that this module has a larger user base, so thanx in advance for considering this.

nedjo’s picture

What, Canadian/British spelling not allowed? ;)

It might be possible to have the basics in Elements and then extend in a second optional module. But I don't have the available time either to write such or a module or to maintain it.

klonos’s picture

ok, thanx for taking the time to reply Nedjo.

PS: Sorry, I wasn't aware of the British flavor of the word + it did come up as misspelled in my browser's spellchecker.

Shadlington’s picture

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jmones’s picture

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jwilson3’s picture

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lpalgarvio’s picture

+1 :)

NancyDru’s picture

It might be a good idea to post a link to this issue on the project page.

nedjo’s picture

@NancyDru: good suggestion, done.

apaderno’s picture

Status: Active » Fixed

Status: Fixed » Closed (fixed)

Automatically closed - issue fixed for 2 weeks with no activity.