Tabs Studio Blog (organizing Visual Studio document tabs)

I use less distractive “gray theme” icons in Tabs Studio context menu. Now that context menu is completely customizable, I’ve created an alternative color icons pack:

Color Icons add-in monitors two tab context menu events and replaces default icons in context menu with icons from its own resources. Color Icons’ icons are stored in Icons folder with Build Action set to Resource in file properties. Each image has resolution 96 dpi and size 16*16 pixels.

You can also replace default close tab button image with the one from ColorIcons.dll using following style:

<Style TargetType="TabsStudio:CloseTabButton" BasedOn="{StaticResource DefaultCloseTabButtonStyle}">
    <Setter Property="Source" Value="pack://application:,,,/ColorIcons;component/icons/close_tab.png"/>
</Style>

You can also use file path (or even website URL) to describe where the custom image is located:

<Style TargetType="TabsStudio:CloseTabButton" BasedOn="{StaticResource DefaultCloseTabButtonStyle}">
    <Setter Property="Source" Value="file://c:/close.png"/>
</Style>

Download Color Icons v1.0.0 for Tabs Studio v1.6.2.

Occasionally, I need to find one of the currently opened documents in Solution Explorer. To fulfill this necessity and to demonstrate Tabs Studio context menu extensibility I’ve created Sync add-in.

Visual Studio has the Track Active Item in Solution Explorer option that constantly syncs Solution Explorer with the currently opened document:

Visual Studio also has the View.TrackActivityinSolutionExplorer command that acts as a toggle for this option. With Track Active Item in Solution Explorer option turned off you can call View.TrackActivityinSolutionExplorer command twice to locate currently opened document in Solution Explorer window (if Solution Explorer window is opened).

Alternatively, Sync add-in adds the new Sync with Solution Explorer command to tab and tab extension context menus. It allows locating any opened document (not only current) and activates Solution Explorer window if it is not opened:

Sync monitors both OpeningTabExtensionContextMenu and OpeningTabContextMenu events:

engine.OpeningTabExtensionContextMenu += OpeningTabExtensionContextMenu;
engine.OpeningTabContextMenu += OpeningTabContextMenu;

In OpeningTabExtensionContextMenu it checks that TabExtension has Document and ProjectItem associated with it (to show Sync command only for document windows), stores TabExtension for later processing (if user chooses Sync command from the menu) and places the new Sync menu item after the Open Containing Folder item:

private void OpeningTabExtensionContextMenu(object sender, 
    TabsStudioExt.OpeningTabExtensionContextMenuEventArgs e)
{
    try
    {
        if (e.TabExtension.Window.Document == null || e.TabExtension.Window.Document.ProjectItem == null)
            return;
    }
    catch (System.Exception)
    {
        return;
    }
    storedTabExtension = e.TabExtension;
    PlaceMenuItem(syncTabExtensionMenuItem, e.ContextMenu);
}

To exactly place the new menu item, Sync scans all context menu items looking for the control with the OpenContainingFolder name and inserts the new item after it:

private void PlaceMenuItem(System.Windows.Controls.MenuItem menuItem,
    System.Windows.Controls.ContextMenu menu)
{
    foreach (object item in menu.Items)
    {
        if (item is System.Windows.Controls.Control)
        {
            if ((item as System.Windows.Controls.Control).Name.Equals("OpenContainingFolder"))
            {
                menu.Items.Insert(menu.Items.IndexOf(item) + 1, menuItem);
                break;
            }
        }
    }
}

When user chooses the Sync menu command, Solution Explorer window is activated, associated project item is made visible using the ExpandView method and associated element in the Solution Explorer tree is selected:

private void SyncTabExtension(object sender, System.Windows.RoutedEventArgs e)
{
    try
    {
        EnvDTE.UIHierarchy solutionExplorer = dte.ToolWindows.SolutionExplorer;
        solutionExplorer.Parent.Activate();
        EnvDTE.ProjectItem projectItem = storedTabExtension.Window.Document.ProjectItem;
        projectItem.ExpandView();

        EnvDTE.UIHierarchyItem hierarchyItem = 
            FindHierarchyItem(solutionExplorer.UIHierarchyItems, projectItem);
        if (hierarchyItem != null)
            hierarchyItem.Select(EnvDTE.vsUISelectionType.vsUISelectionTypeSelect);
    }
    catch (System.Exception)
    {
    }
}

When Sync command is invoked for a tab, all extensions in this tab are selected in the Solution Explorer tree.

Download Sync v1.0.0 for Tabs Studio v1.6.2.

In the next Tabs Studio version I’ve added two new events that occur just before tab context menu is opened:

namespace TabsStudioExt
{
    public interface ITabsStudioEngine
    {
        ...
        event OpeningTabContextMenuEventHandler OpeningTabContextMenu;
        event OpeningTabExtensionContextMenuEventHandler OpeningTabExtensionContextMenu;
    }
}

OpeningTabContextMenuEventArgs contains the System.Windows.Controls.ContextMenu ContextMenu property, Tab and Tabs properties. OpeningTabExtensionContextMenuEventArgs contains the ContextMenu, TabExtension, Tab and Tabs properties. An add-in can add, remove and modify menu items in the context menu based on TabExtension or Tab it was opened for. Right click on a tab with a single extension generates the OpeningTabExtensionContextMenu event.

To simplify customization from an add-in, each menu item and separator in the default context menu was given a Name. For document tab context menu the names are: Open, OpenSeparator, Save, Close, CloseAllButThis, CloseAllDocuments, FileSeparator, CopyFullPath, OpenContainingFolder, VS2010DocumentSeparator, VS2010Floating, VS2010Dockable, TabGroupsSeparator, MoveToNextTabGroup, MoveToPreviousTabGroup, TabsStudioSeparator and TabsStudio:

For non document tab context menu additional names are: WindowSeparator, Floating, Dockable, TabbedDocument, AutoHide and Hide:

For the next Tabs Studio version I’ve added the Open add-ins directory button to the Add-in Manager dialog:

This button creates the TabsStudioAddins directory if it doesn’t exist and opens it in Windows Explorer:

Installing and removing add-ins should be easier now – no need to search for the TabsStudioAddins directory on the disk yourself.

Files in different projects and even files within a project can have the same names. In this case their tabs also have the same titles and one need to hover the mouse over the tabs to distinguish them by tooltip with the full path. Disambiguator add-in detects when two or more tabs have the same title and adds Visual Studio folder or project to titles for these tabs.

Disambiguator monitors TabCreated event, searches if tabs with the same name without extension already exist and adds TitleTransform to tabs found except if tab already has TitleTransform with the [Disambiguator] tag. The TitleTransform prefixes the title with the Visual Studio folder or project name (if document is not within a folder). A web site project has a full path as its name, so Disambiguator uses only last directory name in the title in this case.

Download Disambiguator v1.0.0 for Tabs Studio v1.5.7.