I’m often asked about the missing New horizontal/vertical tab group commands in the Tabs Studio context menu. Due to technical difficulties I can’t come up with a good overall solution for it, but now that Visual Studio 2010 introduces two new Window.NewHorizontalTabGroup and Window.NewVerticalTabGroup commands I can solve the most common case with an add-in:
New tab group commands
The NewGroup add-in adds the New horizontal/vertical tab group commands to the Tabs Studio context menu for the selected tab/extension if commands are available. For example, the New horizontal tab group command is not available when vertical tab groups already created and both commands are not available when there is only one tab in a selected group. In Tabs Studio you can open a tab context menu without making the tab selected – in this case the two new commands are not shown as it is much harder to determine if they should be available in this case.
Download the NewGroup add-in for VS 2010.
Tabs Studio v2.0.6 released – added more add-ins loading error diagnostic, fixed inability to run Tabs Studio from a network share in VS 2010.
.NET runtime traditionally has strict rules against running managed code from a network. In Visual Studio 2008 (CLR v2) to run Tabs Studio from a network share you had to add special “Code Access Security Policy”.
In Visual Studio 2010 (CLR v4) if you try to run Tabs Studio v2.0.5 from a network share you get error number 80131515:
Tabs Studio add-in failed to load with error 80131515 in VS 2010
To allow Tabs Studio to run you have to add the
loadFromRemoteSources element (see the
MSDN reference) to the “C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 10.0\Common7\IDE\devenv.exe.config”:
<configuration>
<runtime>
<loadFromRemoteSources enabled="true"/>
</runtime>
</configuration>
Plus you have to upgrade to Tabs Studio v2.0.6 that workarounds Assembly.Location throws ArgumentException.
Another potential problem is when you download Tabs Studio add-ins to your computer for Visual Studio 2010 from the Internet they may end up blocked by Windows (it is not a problem for Visual Studio 2008):
Saver add-in marked as a file from another computer
Loading such add-in for VS 2010 silently fails in Tabs Studio v2.0.5 and gives the following error in
Tabs Studio v2.0.6:
Blocked Saver add-in loading error in VS 2010
To solve this problem you can either unblock Saver.dll in Windows Explorer or enable the
loadFromRemoteSources switch in devenv.exe.config the same way as for running Tabs Studio from a network share.
Radames Cruz Moreno thoroughly describes all the new tab features that are part of the Visual Studio 2010 Pro Power Tools on the Visual Studio Blog.
Tabs Studio v2.0.5 released – added Visual Studio 2010 Pro Power Tools support, added tab floating on double click in VS 2010, improved compatibility with other add-ins’ toolbars in VS 2010.
By default in Visual Studio 2010 double clicking a tab or the title of a docked tool window creates a floating window. I’ve added this feature to Tabs Studio too – now double clicking a tab or an extension in a tab in VS 2010 creates a floating window. Of course, the Floating menu item is still available in the tab and extension context menus.
I’ve updated Tabs Studio to replace Power Tools’ tabs as well. I recommend selecting the Visual Studio 2010 preset in the Document Tab Well options:
Recommended Document Tab Well Options for Tabs Studio
Or you can uncheck the
Enable scrolling option (to prevent scroller artifacts) and uncheck the
Color tabs by project option (to use default colors for the line under the tabs) in the default
Scrollable Tab Well preset.
Microsoft has released Visual Studio 2010 Pro Power Tools today adding lots of new tab options:
General Document Tab Well Options
Color Coding Document Tab Well Options
The Start Page tab after Power Tools installation
First things first – you can have multiple rows of pinned tabs now:
Multiple rows of pinned tabs
I.e. after you pin some tabs, they will take multiple rows if needed. “Normal” tabs are still form single row. Pinned tabs can’t be reordered by mouse.
Tabs can be arranged vertically, to the left of the code window. When needed pinned tabs take several columns:
Vertical tabs
Two columns of vertical tabs
In addition to the standard tab list drop down for hidden tabs, “Visual Studio 2003 tab scrollers” can be enabled:
The standard drop down and Visual Studio 2003 tab scrollers
I couldn’t make Remove tabs by usage order to remove tabs. All other options, I think, are self explanatory.
Tabs Studio is not currently compatible with this extension (generates null reference exception at startup). I will see whether it can be fixed.
Update: Tabs Studio v2.0.5 released with Visual Studio 2010 Pro Power Tools support (read more about how it is supported).
Troubleshooter doesn’t extend Tabs Studio with new features, it just logs as much as possible about Visual Studio execution.
The following information is logged: OS version, VS version, loaded dlls (updated every 10 seconds), VS command/document/solution/window events, Tabs Studio events, WPF warnings. I try to collect as little personal data as possible. For example, instead of file names only extensions are logged and instead of project names only project types are logged.
Each Visual Studio session is logged in a separate file. Log file names look like “Troubleshooter January 24, 21_20_01 Part 0.txt” where “January 24, 21_20_01″ is the time of Visual Studio start. If log file size exceeds 50 MB, a file for the next log part is created. Log files are created in the “LocalApplicationData\Sergey Vlasov\Tabs Studio” folder.
Troubleshooter installer installs the add-in for VS 2008 and creates a desktop shortcut to the logs folder.
Troubleshooter v1.0.1 and source code (including WiX based installer) are available. I think Visual Studio events subscription is the most interesting part of the source code for those interested in extending Visual Studio functionality.
In Visual Studio 2010 default style for tabs uses left and right margins of 1 pixel:
<Style x:Key="DefaultTabsStyle" TargetType="TabsStudio:Tabs">
<Setter Property="Margin" Value="1,0,1,0"/>
</Style>
It makes transition between Tabs Studio tabs and Visual Studio border under the tabs in the left and right corners smooth:
Left tab margin
When tabs are in a separate window, default margins create white lines to the left and to the right of the tabs:
White lines to the left and to the right of the tabs
Setting margins to 0 removes these lines:
<Style TargetType="TabsStudio:Tabs" BasedOn="{StaticResource DefaultTabsStyle}">
<Setter Property="Margin" Value="0,0,0,0"/>
</Style>
Excessive tabs margins removed
Another useful customization for tabs in a separate window is tabs background. The default background in VS 2010 style is transparent, it results in dark blue for normal tabs placement and white for tabs in a separate window. As an example, the following style sets tabs background to dark blue:
<Style TargetType="TabsStudio:Tabs" BasedOn="{StaticResource DefaultTabsStyle}">
<Setter Property="Background" Value="#293955"/>
</Style>
Dark blue tabs background
A similar style can be used to customize tabs background in VS 2008, which is by default grey control brush.
