Tabs Studio Blog (organizing Visual Studio document tabs)

Tabs Studio installs to a subdirectory in the user’s My Documents directory. By default My Documents directory is on the system disk, but it can be changed to point to another disk or network share:

If My Documents was set to a network share and you run Tabs Studio v1.5.0 installer you get “Tabs Studio requires Visual Studio 2005, Visual Studio 2008 or Visual Studio 2010 installed” error message:

This problem in the installer is fixed in Tabs Studio v1.5.1. Installer v1.5.1 correctly installs Tabs Studio, but when you run Visual Studio you get “Error number: 80131417”:

A .NET dll running from a network share has less permissions than a dll running from a local disk (even with the .NET 3.5 SP1 changes). You need to add a new code group for the Addins directory with FullTrust to the “Code Access Security Policy”. Run the following single line command with admin rights:

C:\WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v2.0.50727\CasPol.exe -m -ag All_Code -url "file://\\server\share\user\Visual Studio
 2008\Addins\*" FullTrust -n "VisualStudio2008Addins" -d "Visual Studio 2008 Add-ins"

Now after Visual Studio restart Tabs Studio should run just fine (you may need to re-enable it on startup in Tools – Add-in Manager).

To remove FullTrust from the Addins directory when you don’t need it any more, run the following command with admin rights:

C:\WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v2.0.50727\CasPol.exe -m -rg "VisualStudio2008Addins"

Update: Uninstallation of v1.5.1 doesn’t work if the computer’s System account doesn’t have read access to the Addins directory on network share.

Update 2: If the computer’s System account doesn’t have read access to the Addins directory you can manually delete TabsStuido.dll, TabsStudio.AddIn files and Microsoft.VC90.CRT directory from it. After that uninstallation or newer version installation works fine.

“Very cool. So far this little add-in is helping me just a tad more productive and it stays out of my way!” Read full review.

Mouse click consists of two actions – pressing a button and releasing the button. Associated mouse click action can be initiated by either of these two events. Let’s see how mouse clicks are processed in Tabs Studio.

Left click to select tab. Currently Tabs Studio selects tab on mouse button down and this is standard Windows shell behavior. OK.

Left click on close tab button. Currently Tabs Studio closes tab on mouse button down. For a button standard Windows shell behavior is to initiate button action on mouse up. I’m changing Tabs Studio behavior to close tab on mouse button up.

Right click to open tab context menu. Currently Tabs Studio opens menu on mouse button down. Most Windows applications (VS, IE, Explorer) open context menu on mouse button up. I’m changing Tabs Studio behavior to open context menu on mouse button up.

Middle click to close tab. Currently Tabs Studio closes tab on mouse button down. Standard Windows shell applications don’t use middle button. Other applications behave both ways. Firefox closes tab on mouse button up. IE 8 closes tab on mouse button down. VS 2008 closes tab on mouse button up. VS 2010 Beta 1 closes tab on mouse button down. I think closing on mouse button up is better as it allows canceling closing: if after pressing the middle mouse button on a tab you realized that you don’t want to close it you can move mouse off the tab holding the middle mouse button. I’m changing Tabs Studio behavior to close tab on mouse button up.

Visual Studio 2005 and Visual Studio 2008 support multiple documents window layout:

I’ve added Tabs Studio tabs to this mode too:

“When I installed Tabs Studio I thought it was a cool idea, but after using it the last 2 weeks I’m hooked.” Read full review.

I’m working on a single msi installer for all supported Visual Studio versions (2005, 2008 and 2010 Beta 1). You run TabsStudio.msi, click I accept, click Install, installer installs Tabs Studio for the current user for all supported Visual Studio versions installed, you click Finish and that’s all:

Installing a new Tabs Studio version over existing one looks exactly the same. Installation doesn’t require admin rights or elevation. To uninstall Tabs Studio go to the standard Control Panel applet: