Why the tabs?
 

I'd like to first thank Valloric for this great tool. And thanks to all the forum members who've already found clever solutions to any problems I come across.

So, why are there tabs in the UI? They seem redundant with the book browser. I've recently done a lot of chapterizing (the slow way), so I usually end up with most of the xhtml files open in tabs that need to be closed. The earlier ones still have to re-render when selected, so it doesn't save any time over opening the file from the book browser.

I'd suggest that the tabs go away and navigation be done with the browser pane, via single clicks. Also, it'd be handy for my work flow if the next two or three (and previous one) item(s) in the browser were pre-loaded, and not displayed. That way a user could jump back & forth between near browser items with less load time. I also wouldn't need to close all those open tabs.

Is there an advantage to the tabbed model that I'm missing?

-Thanks
-matt

You are playing with the CSS. You can quickly check what effects on different section types if you have the in tabs.
You are making stylistic changes to your chapters. You can Copy-paste code snippets, Compare between 2 chapters..

Could that not be done with the file browser? You can't see two tabs simultaneously either.
Suppose the last few files you single-clicked in the browser were kept loaded in the browser. Also the next one or two files were pre-loaded. Wouldn't that be just the same for messing with styles & formatting, but without any tab related overhead?
-M