aka: How can I find a tab in another window in Sublime?
In Sublime, the feature called Goto Anything (⌘+P, ⌘+T, Win: ⌃+P, etc.) searches through a list of open files/tabs, or any files (and more) but only in your current project/focused window :( I understand why it works that way but it's not super useful for having a bunch of random files open.
I'm currently using Sublime on my home computer (Mac) where I have 3 or 4 windows open (not technically projects, but Sublime seems to associate the two conceptually) each with 1-5 tabs. It's often difficult to find a tab I was using for a quick note (eg. groceries) because right-clicking the app icon in the dock only shows the active tab per window. If "groceries" was in a window and wasn't the last viewed tab when I went to another Sublime window, it's effectively lost, and I've got to start going through each one of my Sublime windows to find it.
I've also tried the Find in Files... feature (⇧+⌘+F) with <open files> in the Where field thinking I'd just search for something in the file (eg. eggs) but "open files" really means "open files in this project/window"...same scope limitation.
I've even looked for a plugins that might help but "Goto absolutely everything" is a concept that's hard to search for. I've been wanting to try writing my own so I'd be grateful for a Python solution as well!
I realize this is a somewhat old thread, and you may have already come up with a solution. While there is no way that I know of to do a search or goto anything across all windows, I developed a Sublime Text plugin that allows you to jump between windows using command+shift+o on Mac OS X.
You can install it from package control:https://packagecontrol.io/packages/GotoWindow
I currently have a VS installation with no extensions to see how that works out. For navigation that means making heavy use of Ctrl+; aka Search Solution Explorer. While the search itself is ok, it has one major drawback for me that makes it a pain to use for me (both with keyboard and mouse):
Solution with two projects, one collapsed, one opened:
Use Ctrl+; and start typing until match found from collapsed project
What I want now is to simply clear the search and return to the previous view. Seems like a pretty standard requirement, no? But there seems to be no such functionality built in. Problem with the current commands that come close (pressing Esc, clicking Back or Home buttons in Solution Explorer Toolbar) is all the same: they have the extremely annoying behaviour that they insist on suddenly uncollapsing the previously collapsed project and track the match found! (Btw the Track Active Item in Solution Explorer option is turned of in the options). This makes no sense from a UX point of view? You select some kind of 'undo' command, the search box clears which is expected, but then suddenly there's an item visible from a previous search:
So if the collapsed project has like 50 items in it, solution explorer is now useless visually since it litters the screen with stuff you don't want to see, and worse you have to manually collapse the project again to return to the previous view.
Is there a way around this? I thought maybe keyboard shortcuts for Back/Home would be different, but the commands do not seem to be registered. I looked into EnvDTE80.DTE2.ToolWindows.SolutionExplorer but it has no properties/methods that have anything to do with this issue. And somewhere in the tree there is a Microsoft.VisualStudio.PlatformUI.SolutionPivotNavigator which is probably the class responsible for this behaviour, but I have no idea how to access it?
Recently updated to VS2013 SP3 and I have the impression there was a change (or I didn't notice this properly earlier, though my question says otherwise): if I use the Back button in the Solution Explorer view it properly takes me back to the previous view without expanding anything that wasn't expanded before. Using Esc or clearing the search box still behave the same which is a pitty, but at least if I remember to use just the back button it's workable.
update Not really an answer but since I started using Edit.NavigateTo (which is basically 'Go to Anything' including symbols/files) bound to a keyboard shortcut I found no reason to use Window.SolutionExplorerSearch anymore.
Xcode finally added tabs but the problem is that they behave very strange. For example they will keep a tab open only if it was opened to a new tab.
If you open a file just by clicking in the project tree, Xcode will close your tab as soon as you are clicking on another file in the tree.
Is is possible to make them behave like real tabs and prevent Xcode from reusing them? How?
I use a method similar to franks:
In Preferences > Navigation (or Preferences > General in versions of Xcode prior to 5) you can set Optional Navigation to Uses Separate Tab
Now opt-clicking a file in the file navigator will open it in a new tab
Better yet, opt-clicking links in the code opens the destination file in a new tab
The big feature missing is swapping to an already open tab containing the file if there is one (or staying in the current one).
UPDATE for 2020:
Finally, almost 10 years later, Xcode 12.x now appears to mostly resolve the issue described here. There is a new Navigation Style option in the Navigation settings panel that controls this behavior.
The behavior has some new quirks/design-choices that seem to make sense, but I'm still getting used to the new experience. For example, a tab will get re-used unless the file in that tab has been edited recently; such a tab is indicated with an italics title.
PREVIOUS ANSWER
I don't think you can currently get the behavior you desire (or I desire). While the tabs work like Safari, they don't work like tabs in other popular IDEs (Visual Studio or Eclipse). And for me this kind of sucks.
In general, I expect IDE tabs to keep more than 1 file open. So if I click a file in the project tree, I expect that it will switch to the tab I have opened with that file - if I have already opened it. Instead, XCode 4 changes the current tab to the file I clicked - making 2 tabs with the same file. Having 2 tabs with the same file is fairly useless.
This forces the user to scan the tab bar first to see if the file is currently opened; if it's not opened then you can look to the project tree. But if you click in the project tree first (which is what I tend to do) then you get punished because you will have just killed a tab.
This isn't really an answer insofar as it contains a solution; I mostly just want to join in the griping. But upvoting will make you feel better and prove Apple wrong. :)
The problem with Xcode 4's implementation of tabs is that Apple has implemented them as workspace tabs. In other words, creating a new tab essentially creates a new workspace, each with its own sub-panes with their configurations, etc. It's essentially a whole environment in each tab. There are a number of problems with this choice.
This differs from most IDE/text editors' implementation of file tabs wherein a tab (generally) represents a single file, and each file has its own tab.
The problem with workspace tabs is there are only so many potential different workspaces we could benefit from, severely limiting the actual use of tabs in this way. Beyond this, the additional workspaces just become a liability, introducing more things the user of the application needs to concern him/herself with: for example, what the navigator view is, what editor mode is active (standard, assistant, version), whether the debug console is open, etc. etc. Suddenly switching to a new tab means you now have to worry about getting the environment back in the form you need it, because there's a good chance the other tab wasn't left in the state you expect to find it in. This actually discourages the use of tabs because it introduces more work in the workflow.
File tabs don't have this problem (not counting special cases like split view panes) because all that's changing is the file you're looking at, not your whole environment. Moreover, if implemented properly, file tabs work great as an immediate history, allowing one to quickly switch back to a file that was worked in recently, with little effort. The only way to do this in Xcode is to explicitly set up a new tab environment for each file you want to work with, but you have to be careful not to change the file in that tab or your file all of a sudden becomes lost: again, more work for the user.
Workspace tabs are also significantly heavier-weight than file tabs, because there is much more to remember and switching workspaces involves much more than switching files.
The truth is (and I think most will agree with me on this), to a developer, file tabs are much more useful than workspace tabs, and as it stands Xcode still lacks a proper implementation of this feature that many would consider basic required functionality in an IDE/editor.
Xcode->Preferences->General->Double Click Navigation and from the list, choose Uses Separate Tab.
Well, not a real answer but my personal workaround. The real problem for me is, that a file opened in a tab goes away so easily in xcode 4. Finding a file again can be time-consuming, so I like them to be in a tab and stay there.
I solved this (somehow) for me by exactly identifying the actions I do which cause the tab to switch to another file and replace them by their equivalent actions which open a new tab instead.
Instead of single-clicking a file in the navigator, I always double-click which I have set to open a new tab
Most time I do not use the navigator, as it has a different state of opened and closed folders in each tab. Not useful for me. So I switched to using Option ⌥ Command ⌘ O. When opening a file from this list I keep ShiftOption ⌥ pressed. In the small window appearing I choose 'new tab'.
When clicking on links in code I press ShiftOption ⌥ Command ⌘, too, and open in new tab.
I keep two fixed tabs around for editing target-related settings and to view build results. I completely disabled all automatic tab switching in the prefs, because I noticed this distracted me to much.
I would really love to get something like the xcode 3 favorites bar in xcode 4, this was so simple to use..
I imagine my answer won't bubble up for a while, but if you want this to work like visual studio or intellij (or at least closer)
Preferences->General->Double Click Navigation->Uses a separate tab
Double Clicking a file now will stop opening it in a new window and open it in a new tab.
Single is still dumb and takes over your tab. But if you get used to double clicking (which I was already) this will save you some headaches. I suppose.
I absolutely hate how tabs work in Xcode. However, the only workaround i found that works decent is using the OSX tabs shortcuts:
CTRL + CMD + ->
CTRL + CMD + <-
I found my way in Preferences-Behaviors!
I hated Xcode 4 first for the tab issues discussed here, mainly because the debug information kept opening new files in tabs and changing the navigator
in Behaviors you can define a Debug tab and make the Run and Build jump there in various ways. in the Debug tab I give more space to navigators left and bottom
for similar reasons I have a Find tab, too
the other tabs are for files I am writing in. I start them with the .h which is usually small enough so I need only one view, and then with single clicks in the navegator I open 2-3 versions of the .cpp file so I can set them to the locations where the recent hot spots in the file are. then I close the navigators in those tabs
this does not invalidate the care and tricks given in the other answers here, but makes them far less hard
happy coding!
I found out that when pressing option a.k.a. alt when opening files in the navigator, you will jump to the tab already open with the file and a new tab will open in case it was not yet open.
This technique also works when opening files via cmdshift-O and opening the suggestion with option-enter in stead of simply enter...
Now, if there would be some way to make this the default, i.e. the need to keep pressing option all the time would be removed, that would be a big step forward.
Also I use Behaviors to keep my tabs from being recycled after test or build failures.
(Like other people, I totally mislike Xcode's tab behavior. Apple should take a look at IntelliJ...)
xcode tab bar is so suck, I think Apple should enhance the feature of the tab navigation to avoid followed 3 points.
1. double click a file will let xcode open another tab if it has already been there.
2. for more tabs, the tab will become small and thus I don't know which file in which tab, I want the tab show full name
3. for even more tabs, new tabs will be hidden, instead of two lines of tabs. I want to it show two lines of tab bars.
If you have the tab bar enabled (View/Show Tab Bar) and you double click a file, it appears in it's own window, with a single tab (Be sure the Tab Bar is enabled in both the new and old (main) windows).
Now all you have to do is drag that new window from its tab and drop it into the tab bar of your main window.
It will stay docked as a separate tab, showing that file.
To change the file open in that new tab, go Project / Reveal in Project Navigator, which opens the project navigator at the left hand side.
Tabs in Xcode 4 work like tabs elsewhere on Mac OS X, for example in Safari and Terminal.
Xcode 3.2 has implemented cursor-level history for the "Go Forward", "Go Backward" commands. Previously these worked at the file level, so you could navigate back and forth through recent files you've been editing. Now they navigate at a more fine-grained level, through the places within files where you have been editing.
The downside to this is if you navigate backwards through the files and make a minor edit, all of your forward history is wiped out, whereas in the past it used to be easy to return to the file you were working on. It also means issuing a lot more commands if you just want to move through files, since you have to skip through all the edit points within each file.
I can't find anything in the release notes or documentation about this new behavior, so does anyone know if it's possible to get the old 'go back/forward by file' commands in 3.2? If not, does anyone have any tips on other ways of easily navigating recent files in Xcode?
Hold down the option key while you click the forward/backward arrows at the top of the code view, this will use the Xcode 3.0 behavior and go back a file at a time.
I had the same question as well and and Rob's answer on holding Option while clicking the forward/backward arrows works well.
I needed a keyboard shortcut though and I've found that Shift-Option-Cmd-left/right works.
From the comments on this blog entry:
Hold down the Option key to get the old file-based Go Forward/Go Back behavior. We rarely change established behavior like this when adding new options, but in this case, the majority of users considered file-level navigation Broken and location-based navigation Correct, based on their experience in browsers and other IDEs. We chose to give what more people considered the “obvious” behavior the pride of place on the keyboard shortcut, but the old way is still there.
-- Chris Espinosa
But like you guys have said, after every keyboard edit, the forward file history is lost. This is incredibly frustrating to me, as this is a feature I have heavily relied on for years, which is now broken. Is there still no fix?
There are Next File and Previous File commands, however their history is also wiped out after an edit. That seems like a bug to me.
This is plain stupid! What's the reason for suddenly change this ? Shift-Option-Cmd-left/right... great, more stupid shortcuts from Apple. I guess I soon have to use Shift-Option-Cmd-Left-Alt-Enter-N for something I use all the time. Can't they just implement a recent file list on ctrl-tab or something, like the Cmd-tab and the app switcher. Why would I want to grab for the mouse when I'm coding ? Still I have to use it lots in Xcode.
Sorry for my rant :)
On Eclipse, whenever I double click a tab, it fills the workspace (by hiding all other views like project tree, console, etc).
Is there any way to do this on Visual Studio?
Note: i'm not looking for full screen, just want a way to declutter the workspace but still have access to menus.
Are you after this?
Set shortcuts for the Window.AutoHideAll function and for the Window.ResetWindowLayout function. In order for the ResetWindowLayout to work, you have to export your settings (make sure you select "All Settings") with all windows expanded and then import them again.
ResetWindowLayout will restore all windows to the way they were the last time you imported your settings.
Not with double click on tab, but you can do the same with Shift+Alt+Enter key combination.
This keyboard shorcut was changed to F11 from 1.9.1 vscode version.
All keyboard Shortcuts: https://code.visualstudio.com/shortcuts/keyboard-shortcuts-windows.pdf
I was looking for that, as well, and I now just got used to using full screen (Shift+Alt+Enter), which hides a little too much, which you seem to think, as well, but does in fact still show the menus.
Looks like drby got it on this one. Just FYI. I pinged the VS team to ask about this and here is the response:
"There is no way to reverse the command automatically. For it to work as a toggle we would need to save which toolwindows were auto hidden and which ones were not when the command was run, which we don’t do (it would cause lots of interesting persistence questions, across profiles and VS sessions)."
The idea of a "Unhide All" command is what I suggested. So if you hide all then you can unhide all as well. There might be some windows you don't want to unhide but the 1 or 2 extra windows is better than not having an unhide IMHO.