Tabs Studio Blog (organizing Visual Studio document tabs)

It is a common convention to have interface file names started with ‘I’ (like IService.cs) and implementation files named the same excluding the first ‘I’ (like Service.cs). Would be nice to have them on one tab. Below is a solution copied from the recent discussion on the Tabs Studio mail list.

It is easy to group such files, the problem is how the result looks like. For example, the best title grouping regex for this task I can think
of is:

(?<Ext>I(?<Name>.+?)\.cs)|(?<Name>(.*[/\\])?.+?)(?<Ext>\..+)

It nicely groups two files as “Service .cs IService.cs”, but when IService.cs is the single file in a tab it will be displayed as “ServiceIService.cs” (and IInterface1.cs will be displayed as “Interface1IInterface1.cs”):

Grouping class and interface tabs using only title grouping regex

To improve interface tab name representation I’ve created the additional ITransform add-in to transform interface titles after grouping. With this add-in for the IService.cs and Service.cs pair a grouped tab will be “Service .cs Interface” and a single interface tab will remain “IService.cs”:

Grouping class and interface tabs using title grouping regex and the ITransform add-in

ITransform still requires setting up the special interface grouping regex first. Add the following title grouping regex section:

I(?<Name>[A-Z].+?)\.(?<Ext>.+)

For example, if you use default title grouping settings, your combined title grouping regex will be:

I(?<Name>[A-Z].+?)\.(?<Ext>.+)|(?<Name>(.*[/\\])?.+?)(?<Ext>\..+)

Download link: ITransform v1.0.0.

I’ve added saving of the highlighted tabs list when you close Visual Studio and restoring highlighting when the solution is opened the next time. This information is stored per solution in a [solution name].marker.tss file in a solution directory along with the sln and suo files.

Download link: Marker v1.0.2.

One of the most suggested features for Tabs Studio is to automatically open corresponding files (e.g. when Class.cpp is opening automatically open Class.h). It is also one of the hardest to make right. More than a year ago Andreas Guenther wrote the first implementation of this extension and after numerous private tests and a lot of feedback I present you AutoOpener.

The AutoOpener add-in uses the same infrastructure that shows Open commands when you right click on a tab and in the core of the TabsStudio.Connect.OpenCorrespondingFile command. Usage of AutoOpener indicated that liberal default tab grouping options (letting files with any extension to be opened) cause strange errors from Visual Studio when opening a code file that happens to share the same name with a project or a resource file. These errors are fist of all puzzling (strange error code after just double-clicking a file) and then require to manually add excluding rules (for project and resource files) to title or path grouping options. To make AutoOpener behavior more predictable I’ve added the explicit list of extensions that are considered for opening:

AutoOpener's default allowed extensions list

You can add and remove extensions from this list going to AutoOpener options, but note that if an extension is blocked for grouping in Tabs Studio options it will not be opened automatically no matter if it on AutoOpener‘s list or not.

Download link: AutoOpener v1.0.3 (requires Tabs Studio v2.3.4).

If you prefer keyboard to navigate between tabs, the Navigator add-in provides NavigateToNextTab and NavigateToPreviousTab commands. Plus core Tabs Studio provides NextTabExtension and PreviousTabExtension commands to switch between windows in a tab group. Using these commands you can switch to any open document using keyboard, but it requires four keyboard shortcuts.

I’ve added two more NavigateToNextWindow and NavigateToPreviousWindow commands to Navigator. These commands first switch to the next document in the selected tab and then switch to the nearest document in the next tab. Now you can switch to any open document using keyboard with only two keyboard shortcuts:

Window navigation commands from Navigator

Download link: Navigator v1.0.6.

Some Visual Studio add-ins add commands to the Visual Studio tab context menu. For example, Power Commands and ReSharper add the Close all command. VisualSVN adds several commands and even a submenu:

VisualSVN commands in Visual Studio 2010 tab context menu

Tabs Studio creates its own tab context menu that doesn’t include Visual Studio or other add-in commands. The new XMenu add-in extends Tabs Studio context menu with external commands. XMenu scans all commands from Visual Studio tab context menu and adds those not from the default Visual Studio command set to the Tabs Studio context menu:

VisualSVN commands in Tabs Studio tab context menu

By the way, you can customize Visual Studio tab context menu as other Visual Studio menus and toolbars. The tab context menu is in Other Context Menus and named Easy MDI Document Window:

Tab context menu customization in Visual Studio 2010

Tab context menu customization in Visual Studio 2008

For non-document tabs (like Start Page) the context menu name is Easy MDI Tool Window. If you manually add a new command to a Visual Studio tab context menu, XMenu will also add this command to the Tabs Studio tab context menu.

Note, in Visual Studio 2010 to add a command to the right-click menu of a document’s tab, first you’ll need to right-click on a Visual Studio document tab to work around a Visual Studio bug. (Otherwise the Easy MDI Document Window context menu doesn’t show up in the Customize dialog.) As Tabs Studio hides original Visual Studio tabs, you first need to temporarily disable Tabs Studio or float a document to open original document’s tab context menu.

Download link: XMenu v1.0.0.