As far as I can tell, there is no option to prevent mkvtoolnix GUI from opening a new tab on startup. I think this option would be useful to avoid an extra empty tab that is left behind when adding multiple files/folders at once. Even using Windows “Send to” functionality and launching mkvtoolnix GUI with a set of files/folders still forces the new tab creation.
IMO, this feature might help improve certain workflows and avoid unnecessary clicks. The new setting could be toggled via check box in preferences or added as a command line option.
If this behavior is already possible I would appreciate any further information. Thanks!
You’re right, it isn’t possible to prevent the tab at the moment. That being said, the GUI tries to re-use the tab when you drag & drop multiple files. If it considers the tab to be “empty”, it should assign the first file to it (depending on your settings wrt. what to do when multiple files are added at once).
It’d be pretty trivial to add such functionality, though, and I’m willing to do so. Please open an issue for it over on Gitlab. Otherwise chances are I’ll forget about it again. Thanks!
Appreciate the quick response! I can certainly open an issue on Gitlab about startup behavior. Unfortunately, I’ve dug into this a bit deeper and I don’t think that resolves my issue! Hopefully I’m not complicating things too much… I’ll let you be the judge of that.
The following is a list of drag/drop behaviors depending on settings (wrt. the re-use/creation of an empty tab).
“Add all files to the current multiplex settings”
a. re-uses empty tab when empty tab exists
b. does not create new empty tab when none exists
“Create one new multiplex settings tab and add all files there”
a. does not re-use empty tab when empty tab exists
b. creates new empty tab when none exists
“Create one new multiplex settings tab for each file”
a. re-uses empty tab when empty tab exists
b. does not create new empty tab when none exists
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“Handle all files from all directories as a single list of files”
a. behavior linked with setting chosen above for drag/drop files
“Create a new multiplex settings tab for each directory”
a. does not re-use empty tab when empty tab exists
b. creates new empty tab when none exists
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The behaviors above that concern me are the two instances of “creates new empty tab when none exists” (2b and 5b). Even if a startup option were added to allow launching the GUI without creating a new empty tab, the behavior from 2b and 5b will always force a new empty tab to be created regardless. This is the behavior I’d like to avoid!
My suggestion is to alter the behavior for 2b and 5b to align with the behavior of 1b and 3b. This would mean that if the GUI is currently empty (no tabs at all), it does NOT create a new empty tab when adding files or folders.
The wording used for these two settings is “create ONE new…” and “create A new…” respectively. I think this should imply only one singular new tab should be getting created per file/folder. However, an extra (unnecessary) tab is always created when the GUI is in an empty state. I do not see a logical reason for this to occur.
I also suggest making the wording consistent by changing “Create a new multiplex settings tab for each directory” to “Create ONE new multiplex settings tab for each directory”.
To the best of my knowledge, the above changes in addition to optionally launching the GUI without a tab would resolve my very minor issue!
I hope this all makes sense. I honestly think these changes would improve the expected behavior and logic of the GUI. Please let me know your thoughts. Thanks!
P.S. I have not evaluated behavior wrt. “adding multiple files via ‘add source files’”. This is not possible when the GUI is empty!
Also, if you want to maintain wording consistency, the dialog box pop-up for “Always ask the user” might need to be looked at.
When drag and dropping folders specifically, the “add all files to current multiplex settings” option does not prevent the new tab. Only when drag and dropping files (no folders/directories involved) does the difference you state actually occur.