<Style TargetType="TabsStudio:Tab" BasedOn="{StaticResource DefaultTabStyle}">
  <Style.Triggers>
    <MultiTrigger>
      <MultiTrigger.Conditions>
        <Condition Property="TabsStudioMvcGroup:Properties.IsController" Value="True"/>
        <Condition Property="IsTabSelected" Value="False"/>
      </MultiTrigger.Conditions>
      <Setter Property="Background">
        <Setter.Value>
          <LinearGradientBrush StartPoint="0,0" EndPoint="0,1">
            <GradientStop Color="#F5F5F5" Offset="0"/>
            <GradientStop Color="#B0D0B0" Offset="1"/>
          </LinearGradientBrush>
        </Setter.Value>
      </Setter>
    </MultiTrigger>
    <MultiTrigger>
      <MultiTrigger.Conditions>
        <Condition Property="TabsStudioMvcGroup:Properties.IsView" Value="True"/>
        <Condition Property="IsTabSelected" Value="False"/>
      </MultiTrigger.Conditions>
      <Setter Property="Background">
        <Setter.Value>
          <LinearGradientBrush StartPoint="0,0" EndPoint="0,1">
            <GradientStop Color="#F5F5F5" Offset="0"/>
            <GradientStop Color="#B0B0D0" Offset="1"/>
          </LinearGradientBrush>
        </Setter.Value>
      </Setter>
    </MultiTrigger>
  </Style.Triggers>
</Style>

ASP.NET MVC tabs grouping and coloring by type

<Style TargetType="TabsStudio:Tab" BasedOn="{StaticResource DefaultTabStyle}">
  <Style.Triggers>
    <MultiTrigger>
      <MultiTrigger.Conditions>
        <Condition Property="TabsStudioMvcGroup:Properties.GroupName" Value="Account"/>
        <Condition Property="IsTabSelected" Value="False"/>
      </MultiTrigger.Conditions>
      <Setter Property="Background">
        <Setter.Value>
          <LinearGradientBrush StartPoint="0,0" EndPoint="0,1">
            <GradientStop Color="#F5F5F5" Offset="0"/>
            <GradientStop Color="#B0D0B0" Offset="1"/>
          </LinearGradientBrush>
        </Setter.Value>
      </Setter>
    </MultiTrigger>
    <MultiTrigger>
      <MultiTrigger.Conditions>
        <Condition Property="TabsStudioMvcGroup:Properties.GroupName" Value="Home"/>
        <Condition Property="IsTabSelected" Value="False"/>
      </MultiTrigger.Conditions>
      <Setter Property="Background">
        <Setter.Value>
          <LinearGradientBrush StartPoint="0,0" EndPoint="0,1">
            <GradientStop Color="#F5F5F5" Offset="0"/>
            <GradientStop Color="#B0B0D0" Offset="1"/>
          </LinearGradientBrush>
        </Setter.Value>
      </Setter>
    </MultiTrigger>
  </Style.Triggers>
</Style>

ASP.NET MVC tabs grouping and coloring by group name

Download link: MvcGroup v1.0.0.

Visual Studio LightSwitch Beta

To run Tabs Studio in a standalone LightSwitch IDE, first install stdole.dll in the GAC. Other than that, Tabs Studio works in LightSwitch IDE as usual:

Tabs Studio in Visual Studio LightSwitch Beta 1

With the Projector installed, to color tabs for the ClassLibrary2 project with purple you can use the following style:

<Style TargetType="TabsStudio:Tab" BasedOn="{StaticResource DefaultTabStyle}">
    <Style.Triggers>
        <MultiTrigger>
            <MultiTrigger.Conditions>
                <Condition Property="TabsStudioProjector:Properties.ProjectName" Value="ClassLibrary2"/>
                <Condition Property="IsTabSelected" Value="False"/>
            </MultiTrigger.Conditions>
            <Setter Property="Background">
                <Setter.Value>
                     <LinearGradientBrush StartPoint="0,0" EndPoint="0,1">
                         <GradientStop Color="#F5F5F5" Offset="0"/>
                         <GradientStop Color="#B0B0F0" Offset="1"/>
                     </LinearGradientBrush>
                </Setter.Value>
            </Setter>
        </MultiTrigger>
    </Style.Triggers>
</Style>

Purple tab from the ClassLibrary2 project

Finding and assigning a distinct color for each project in a solution could be hard. Assigning a single color to a group of projects is more practical, except WPF doesn’t have direct capability to trigger match between a project name and a list of names. Projector adds custom IsAnyOfConverter inherited from System.Windows.Data.IValueConverter to support this scenario. The custom Convert function of the converter receives tab’s project name as the value parameter, comma separated list of project names for a color as the parameter parameter and returns true if tab’s project name is in the list:

public object Convert(object value, System.Type targetType,
    object parameter, System.Globalization.CultureInfo culture)
{
    string[] allowedValues = ((string)parameter).Split(new System.Char[] { ',' });
    return ((System.Collections.Generic.IList)allowedValues).Contains((string)value);
}

To use this converter in XAML we define it as a static resource and invoke in a data trigger:

<TabsStudioProjector:IsAnyOfConverter x:Key="IsAnyOf" />

<Style TargetType="TabsStudio:Tab" BasedOn="{StaticResource DefaultTabStyle}">
    <Style.Triggers>
        <MultiDataTrigger>
            <MultiDataTrigger.Conditions>
                <Condition Binding="{Binding Path=(TabsStudioProjector:Properties.ProjectName),
                        RelativeSource={RelativeSource Self},
                        Converter={StaticResource IsAnyOf},
                        ConverterParameter='ClassLibrary3,ClassLibrary4'}"
                        Value="True"/>
                <Condition Binding="{Binding Path=IsTabSelected, RelativeSource={RelativeSource Self}}" Value="False"/>
            </MultiDataTrigger.Conditions>
            <Setter Property="Background">
                <Setter.Value>
                     <LinearGradientBrush StartPoint="0,0" EndPoint="0,1">
                         <GradientStop Color="#F5F5F5" Offset="0"/>
                         <GradientStop Color="#A0C0A0" Offset="1"/>
                     </LinearGradientBrush>
                </Setter.Value>
            </Setter>
        </MultiDataTrigger>
    </Style.Triggers>
</Style>

Green tabs from the ClassLibrary3 and ClassLibrary4 projects

Using the same technique it is possible, for example, to create a regex converter matching tab’s project name with a regular expression specified as the parameter.

Download link: Projector v1.0.

Custom extensions order

In the add-in, priorityExtensions array specifies order of extensions. Extensions not found in this array are placed after specified ones:

private string[] priorityExtensions = { ".h", ".cpp" };

It is highly recommended to use Tabs Studio v2.1.0 or greater with this add-in, otherwise custom ordering may be occasionally reset to default.

Download link: OrderEx v1.0.

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.

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

<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

Blocked Saver add-in loading error in VS 2010

General Document Tab Well Options

Color Coding Document Tab Well Options

The Start Page tab after Power Tools installation

Multiple rows of pinned tabs

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).