Is there any way to "pin" a document into a fixed position? I want to keep the "Source Control Explorer" tab on the far left and always open new documents to the right of it.
However, VS 2010 tends to add documents at the very left. I want "Source Control Explorer" on the very far left so I always know where to find it.
I can think of two different ways of doing this. The first one uses only options that are built into Visual Studio 2010 but is more limited and may not work 100% of the time. The other one requires that you install an extension, but is much more powerful, dependable, and even adds some other useful features.
You can configure Visual Studio to always open new tabs to the right of existing tabs, just like a web browser would. (Personally, I prefer this option.) To do this, open the options dialog (Tools → Options), expand the "Environment" category, click on "Documents" and check the "Insert documents to the right of existing tabs" box (see screen shot).
The key to making this work for you is to ensure that you always open the Source Control Explorer first before opening any other code windows, and then never close it. That way, it will always be on the far left, and all of the code windows you open will be inserted to the right of it.
Like I mentioned above, the advantage of this approach is that it uses a setting built into Visual Studio and doesn't require that you install anything extra. All you have to do is flip a switch. The disadvantage is that it isn't 100% dependable—if you close the Source Control Explorer and re-open it, you'll have to remember to drag it back into position at the far left or it won't be there when you go to look for it.
You can install Microsoft's Productivity Power Tools extension (available from the Visual Studio gallery), which adds the ability to pin tabs (among lots of other neat features) to the VS IDE. There's a great run-down of the features added specifically to the document tab well here, but the feature you're most interested in is pinned tabs. You can even show pinned tabs in a separate row!
This is as close to a perfect solution as it gets, but it does have the disadvantage of requiring you to install something extra. In some environments and for some people, that can be a deal killer. Too many extensions can also slow things down, and later versions of Visual Studio often seem to be slow enough already. (Though, for what it's worth, I use the PPT extension on about half of my VS installations and I haven't noticed that it has caused any significant issues.)
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I guess I have hundreds opens files in my VS2015 now and it is really a headache to find the one which I need. I remember seeing somebody's VS screen which can pick up some tabs and list them in the left panel of visual studio. Is that a add-on or some configuration is built-in options?
Maybe it was my Task Canvas extension that lets you open several small editor windows as tabs in one panel.
Can't STAND the editor for configuring Visual Studio 2010's environment menus. It's soo freaking tedious now! Just try creating a sub-menu, or even adding several commands to your own toolbar. You have to do it one. Command. At. A. Time. closing the command window each time, then losing your place and having to start over again.
Does anyone know of any add-in or extension that lets you actually drag-drop menus and commands so you can more easily set up your enviro the way you want?
Right now, it's such a pain that half the time I just don't even bother.
In Visual Studio, you are able to dock code windows in horizontal and vertical tab groups (something you can also do with tool windows).
However, when doing so you may end up with a lot of redundant screen space. What would be ideal would be if you could mix docking orientations for code windows. This is possible with tool windows in Visual Studio 2010. Here is an image showing the feature used for tool windows:
My question is: is it possible to get this same functionality with the code windows - i.e. being able to mix horizontal and vertical docking, like with the tool windows shown? I've heard rumours that its possible, but I've been unable to find any truth in that.
I too wish this was a naitive feature in visual studio, but there is one workaround by using the 'floating tab group' feature of visual studio
Move the visual studio main window out of the way (maybe to another monitor, or to smallest area of the monitor needed to see the tooling windows)
"Tear out" or Right Click > Float on the desired tab
Position the tab to your desire (I suggest using WinSplitRevolution, via codinghorror)
Repeat, note that you can move a tab to an existing 'floating' tab group
And voila!
There are some setbacks, some commands will pop up over the main tooling window instead of your current tab group etc. but its still pretty nice. I'm not sure if there's any changes coming in VS2012, but I haven't heard about anything related.
In Visual Studio 2008 you could use Sara Ford's did you know #331 (Did you know… You can keep recently-used files from falling off the File Tab Channel? - #331) to make the tabs ordered in MRU (most recently used) order (i.e. the current window is always the left most tab, the previously visited window is second tab, and so forth).
The registry entry listed in the blog post does not appear to work in VS2010 and I have not figured out a way to get tabs listed in MRU. Does anyone know if there is a way in Visual Studio 2010 to keep the most recently-used file from falling off the File Tab Channel?
In the "Productivity Power Tools" extension, the Remove Tabs By Usage Order option seems to be what you are looking for.
Try installing the "Productivity Power Tools" extension - you can disable any other features that you don't use, but the customisation of the tab well is very useful. I don't think it does MRU order, but there are a number of other options that might help.
Another solution, if you are using Windows 7, would be to pin VS2010 to the task bar and then pin them to the programme tasks bar within that through drag and drop for instance.
I've been using Visual Studio for a long time and the constant shuffling of the code tabs at the top drives me bonkers. I was wondering if there were any add-ins that might change this or other UI behavior.
Things that might be cool:
Sticky Tabs that won't go away.
Multi-code file collapsible tabs (maybe each tab being a project?).
Having the solution tree go to the file you are currently looking at automatically. Thanks Omlette!
Your idea here.
I've done a bit of googling and haven't been able to find anything useful.
The "Having the solution tree go to the file you are currently looking at automatically" feature already exists in VS2008, but isn't enabled by default. Go to tools -> options -> projects and solutions -> general and check the "Track Active Item in Solution Explorer" box.
Rick,
Tabs Studio add-in for Visual Studio is a replacement for built-in tabs. Multiple rows of tabs make them always visible. Tabs can be grouped, it is probably close to what you call "multi-code file tabs".
See Tabs Studio home page for more information.