Tabs Studio Blog (organizing Visual Studio document tabs)

I’ve added close tab button to tabs with default style that displays it only for the selected tab:

Close tab button on the selected tab

You can customize it with style to show close tab button on all tabs:

<Style TargetType="TabsStudio:CloseTabButton" BasedOn="{StaticResource DefaultCloseTabButtonStyle}">
    <Style.Triggers>
        <Trigger Property="IsTabSelected" Value="False">
            <Setter Property="Visibility" Value="Visible"/>
        </Trigger>
    </Style.Triggers>
</Style>

Close tab button on all tabs

Of course, you can hide close tab button from all tabs if you like:

<Style TargetType="TabsStudio:CloseTabButton" BasedOn="{StaticResource DefaultCloseTabButtonStyle}">
    <Setter Property="Visibility" Value="Collapsed"/>
</Style>

Another interesting customization is ability to increase close tab button size. For example, if you use larger font size for tabs:

<Style TargetType="TabPanel" BasedOn="{StaticResource DefaultTabPanelStyle}">
    <Setter Property="Control.FontSize" Value="12pt"/>
</Style>
<Style TargetType="TabsStudio:CloseTabButton" BasedOn="{StaticResource DefaultCloseTabButtonStyle}">
    <Setter Property="LayoutTransform">
        <Setter.Value>
            <ScaleTransform ScaleX="1.00" ScaleY="1.00" />
        </Setter.Value>
    </Setter>
</Style>

Larger font size and larger close tab button

Ctrl+Tab is usually used to switch windows using keyboard in Visual Studio IDE:

IDE Navigator

IDE Navigator has two columns: Active Files column for tabbed windows and Active Tool Windows for tool windows. Selected by default window (stdafx.hpp in the example above) is in Active Files column as Ctrl+Tab corresponds to the Window.NextDocumentWindowNav command. Similar Window.NextToolWindowNav command (without default shortcut) starts with default window selected in Active Tool Windows column. IDE Navigator supports arrow keys (left, right, up, down) and mouse for window selection.

Another command Window.ShowEzMDIFileList with default shortcut Ctrl+Alt+Down Arrow shows alphabetically sorted list of tabbed windows:

Tabbed windows list

In this pop-up window you can navigate using up and down arrow keys, mouse and by typing first letter(s) of window name. For example, typing as selects AssemblyInfo.cpp.

Besides Tabs Studio there are other Visual Studio tabs add-ins, though none of it is in active development now:

• WndTabs by Oz Solomon. Supports Visual C++ 6. I was a happy WndTabs user myself until Visual Studio .NET came out. Source code is available.
• VSTabs by Jonathan Payne. Supports Visual Studio 2003. Very small feature set. Source code is available.
• EasyTabs by Sven Ritter. EasyTabs for Visual Studio 2005/2008 original announcement in German, English translation. Supports Visual Studio 2005/2008. Developed on the basis of WndTabs. Source code is not available, but download is free.