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.
Tabs Studio Blog (organizing Visual Studio document tabs) 