Tabs Studio Blog (organizing Visual Studio document tabs)

The preview tab in Visual Studio 11 is a separate reusable tab displayed in the right corner of the document tabs well. In Tabs Studio the preview tab is opened in the last tab position:

The preview tab in Tabs Studio

All relevant add-ins like Sorter, AutoOpener, PriorityGroup and OpenNext were updated to ignore the preview tab and don’t move it from the last position. I’ve added the new IsPreviewTab property to style the preview tab and show the, also new, Open button that transforms the preview tab into the regular tab.

In the Tab Coloring Rule dialog you can now access the preview tab property similar to the other properties like selected tab and previously selected tab. Most of the time, I think, you will set it to False to keep the default preview tab look. (Note, that I’ve also changed, sometimes confusing, three state checkboxes to descriptive comboboxes):

Preview tab property setup in the Tab Coloring Rule dialog

If you are interested in custom VS 11 styling, see the new light and dark default style definitions. Next I plan to add support for floating tab groups in Visual Studio 11.

Download link: Tabs Studio v2.6.3.

I’ve added preliminary support for Visual Studio 11 Beta. For both light and dark themes in VS I’ve added predefined styles in Tabs Studio (see light and dark style definitions) and the corresponding style is selected automatically on startup depending on your Visual Studio settings:

Tabs Studio with the light theme in Visual Studio 11 Beta

Tabs Studio with the dark theme in Visual Studio 11 Beta

Next I plan to add support for the preview tab and for floating tab groups.

Download link: Tabs Studio v2.6.2.

Visual Studio 11 Beta was released this week (see what’s new):

Visual Studio 11 Beta splash screen

Very little has changed in tabs behavior since the developer preview (see my older blog post Document tabs in Visual Studio 11 Developer Preview), but the UI theme is all new:

Visual Studio 11 Beta light color theme

Plus there is also the dark theme:

Visual Studio 11 Beta color theme options

Visual Studio 11 Beta dark color theme

One more color change is for the scenario when you have several tab groups or floating document windows. In Visual Studio 2010, selected but inactive document tab had two states: last active document group or not. See how in the following screenshot MainWindow.xaml.vb is gray and its tab group has gray underline (MainWindow.xaml.vb was the selected document before I switched to Solution Exlorer), Application.xaml.vb is almost transparent and its tab group has corresponding underline:

Special color for the tab group with last active document in Visual Studio 2010

In Visual Studio 11 Beta there is no such distinction. All inactive tab groups are just grey:

Same color for inactive tab groups in Visual Studio 11 Beta

I’ve not found significant changes in VS 11 tabs customization comparing to the developer preview:

Tabs and windows options in Visual Studio 11 Beta

Remember Visual Studio 2010 Beta release when Microsoft introduced WPF UI? This beta again completely changed VS look and feel. Let’s see whether customers’ feedback to add some color back to Visual Studio 11 prompts Microsoft to reconsider the latest design.