Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio 2008 has several built in tab text options:
Tab text options in SSMS 2008
Currently, if you try to disable tab grouping by emptying Title grouping regex or Path grouping regex it doesn’t work – empty regex is interpreted as “use default settings”. It is safe, but counterintuitive and for the next Tabs Studio version I’ve changed empty regex to mean “disable tab grouping”. If you want to disable tab grouping in the current version – write something non-capturing like “don’t group” as a regex.
If you enter invalid regex (e.g. “?” that shows the error parsing “?” – Quantifier {x,y} following nothing) and save it, then, again, default settings are used for tab grouping. I think safety of default settings is still valuable here.
SQL Server Management Studio uses quite different scheme for tab names from Visual Studio. Here is the screenshot of default tab names (I temporarily configured Tabs Studio to not group tabs):
No tab grouping
I’ve significantly improved SSMS support in the next Tabs Studio version:
Now SSMS 2005/2008, VS 2005/2008 and VS 2010 have separate settings. You can customize each of the three product lines independently.
Turning on the Remove path from tab name option strips parentheses and removes path from tab names in SSMS now:
Remove path from tab name in action
Tabs Studio now uses new default title grouping rules when running in SSMS that both group tabs and strip parentheses:
Tab grouping (default)
Documents representing tables in SSMS have document paths like “Server[@Name=’COMP1′]/Database[@Name=’ReportServer’]/Table[@Name=’ActiveSubscriptions’ and @Schema=’dbo’]”. Tabs Studio now applies path grouping rules to these paths as well.
Update: Tabs Studio v1.7.9 with these changes is ready for download.
“Unlike Visual Studio, Tabs Studio displays the tab for every open document in both the SDI and MDI configurations. If there is not enough horizontal space to display every tab, Tabs Studio stacks them vertically.” Read full review.
Jameel did a great work designing Tabs Studio style perfectly matching Visual Studio 2010 theme:
Visual Studio 2010 style by Jameel Al-Aziz
You can use WPF animation effects to customize Tabs Studio presentation. Tabs Studio v1.7.3 demonstrates fade effect for the yellow extension background when mouse is over it and transition effect between states for the close tab button. You can turn on these two effects in the Quick Style window:
Quick Style animate option
<EventTrigger RoutedEvent="Control.MouseEnter">
<EventTrigger.Actions>
<BeginStoryboard>
<Storyboard>
<ColorAnimation Duration="0:0:0.2" Storyboard.TargetName="Border" Storyboard.TargetProperty="BorderBrush.Color" To="Gray"/>
<DoubleAnimation Duration="0:0:0.2" Storyboard.TargetName="LabelText" Storyboard.TargetProperty="Background.Opacity" To="1"/>
</Storyboard>
</BeginStoryboard>
</EventTrigger.Actions>
</EventTrigger>
Full sample effects definitions are available when you turn on animation and generate style in the Quick Style window. I think the most common customization for the sample effects provided will be adjustment of animation duration.
I’ve updated default TabExtension style to ease extension selection. When mouse is over extension it is highlighted with yellow background now, there is no more shadow for extension and there is more padding around tab extension and tab name:
Updated tab extension style
WPF 4.0 introduces new text rendering options. You can customize Tabs Studio text with these new options in Visual Studio 2010 Beta 2 using a style like this one:
<Style TargetType="TabsStudio:Tabs" BasedOn="{StaticResource DefaultTabsStyle}">
<Setter Property="TextOptions.TextFormattingMode" Value="Display"/>
<Setter Property="TextOptions.TextRenderingMode" Value="Aliased"/>
</Style>
Text with display aliased options
Text with display aliased options 3x zoom
Visual Studio 2010 Beta 2 was released this week. The only change I see (comparing to VS window tabs management in 2010 Beta 1) is the new Insert documents to the right of existing tabs option that allows opening tabs on the right:
Insert documents to the right option
Tabs Studio in Visual Studio 2010 Beta 2
I’ve added Tabs Studio registration with SQL Server Management Studio 2008 to the Tabs Studio installer. There will be no need to manually setup and run the .reg file any more.
Tabs Studio Blog (organizing Visual Studio document tabs) 