OSNews

You know you don't have to use tabs if you don't want to. As in your examples, if you want or need to see two seperate windows side by side, but if you want to have something open, but not in your face all the time, tabs are fine to have. Dolphin supports tabs too, but doesn't shove them in your face if you don't want them, and you mentioned you like Dolphin, so obviously its possible to have a tab supporting file manger that doesn't cause you to tear your hair out.

As for the Ribbon UI in a file manager. I don't like it one bit. I found ribbon good enough for word. Its better at managing complexity and exposing functionality than menus that go seven layers deep or several rows of toolbars crammed with tiny confusing icons.

But a file manager should be simple. The menus should be decently shallow, the toolbar should have ample space, and a right click context menu should be all a normal user should need. Here the Ribbon adds complexity and visual clutter. Whats next a ribbon for IE, Windows Media player? Sometimes the UI just needs to disappear, not get bigger.

Also I'm assuming the yellow circles are just placeholder icons, because otherwise those would be abominations.