Tabs Studio Blog (organizing Visual Studio document tabs)

I’ve added the ability to export and import Tabs Studio settings for backup purposes and to copy Tabs Studio settings to another computer:

Export settings and Import settings buttons

Tabs Studio keeps separate settings for VS 2010, VS 2008 and SSMS. If you use several products, export saves all settings and the additional dialog lets you select which settings you want to import:

Products selection for settings import

Settings are stored in a .tssettings zip file and mirror the directory structure of settings in “c:\Users\[username]\AppData\Roaming\Sergey Vlasov”.

Download link: Tabs Studio v2.4.1.

I’ve added some animation when a tab is created, destroyed, changes width or position in the Stable tabs layout. To turn it on, check the new Animate tab movement option:

Animate tab movement option

See Tabs animation demo how it looks like.

Tabs animation duration is controlled by the TabsAnimationDuration property on the Tabs control. When you check the Animate tab movement option, the duration is set to 0.4 s. You can override this value with the following custom style:

<Style TargetType="TabsStudio:Tabs" BasedOn="{StaticResource DefaultTabsStyle}">
	<Setter Property="TabsAnimationDuration" Value="0:0:1.4"/>
</Style>

Download link: Tabs Studio v2.3.7.

When opening, closing and editing Visual Studio documents, tabs change positions to be always visible in minimum number or rows. And the more tabs change positions and rows, the more our workspace becomes disorganized. I’ve created the new Stable tabs layout that reduces excessive tab movements:

Stable tabs layout option

While previous layouts were just wrappers around standard WPF panels, the Stable layout is implemented completely in Tabs Studio and provides ample potential opportunities for customization. The most noticeable visual distinction of the new layout is not justified last row. It doesn’t add stability, but I think is more visually pleasant:

All tab rows justified except the last one

The first actual stability feature is RowBuffer. RowBuffer is space reserved on each tab row that keeps tabs on their positions when some of them slightly increase width. For example, default 30 pixels of RowBuffer can absorb additional width of a close tab button when you switch to this row and 3 document modification asterisks.

You can adjust the RowBuffer value with the following style:

<Style TargetType="TabsStudio:Tabs" BasedOn="{StaticResource DefaultTabsStyle}">
	<Setter Property="RowBuffer" Value="20"/>
</Style>

Another stability feature keeps tabs on their positions when some of them become shorter. When it is possible to reduce number of rows due to shorter tabs, a new arrangement is delayed until the next major relocation.

Events that trigger major relocation are tab creation, tab removal, window size change. Events that don’t lead to tab rearrangement (within limits of RowBuffer) are tab selection, document modification, tab extension creation or removal.

For a new Tabs Studio installation Stable is the default layout now. I’m thinking about removing Standard and Wrap layouts in the future.

Download link: Tabs Studio v2.3.6.