So this is a rather specific question I feel. I want to be able to pre-load the Firefox context menu. I'd like this to happen each time a new tab and/or window is opened. I want the menu and all its associated items to be rendered upon such a request, but I don't want the menu to open as well.
And just to preface, I have e-mailed the developers of OneTab about this, no reply.
(This next section's a bit rambly, but it does explain how I came to the above question).
To contextualise why I'd like to do this: I use an addon called OneTab. It's an awesome addon (and this isn't a plug, just what I think). It can transfer some/all of your current tabs in Firefox into a singular tab for reviewing etc later. So each time you send a bunch of tabs into OneTab, it creates a new group for them. You can name these groups too which I like to do. Helps stay organised. I habitually create a lot of tabs when I'm browsing. So I've also got a lot of tab groups. Now another feature is OneTab's context menu. This is pretty much the method by which you send tabs to OneTab. Now once you've created tab groups, you can then send future tabs to those groups, via the context menu.
Rendering all those options each time the menu is opened on a new tab, takes about 3 seconds for me at the moment. It also stops me interacting with any part of Firefox for that time. Here's an example of the (current) menu structure. Example of OneTab menu structure. At the top right of the menu structure, where it says "Surge protection", there are 4 sub-menu headings. This is the case for all the other tab groups. So that's a lot of entries to render at once. I'm not surprised it takes a while.
One other thing: after I've loaded the context menu once (on the particular tab I'm on), it's just there. The next time I right-click it loads instantly, which is what I want to happen in the first place!!
So this is why I'm asking if it's possible to change the behaviour of the context menu from the Firefox source code. So that all the items are pre-rendered each time a new tab/window is created, but the menu is still opened normally via a right-click. And I think I'd like to utilise Workers for this. Because I know that Workers are background. They don't prevent user interaction. And that's exactly what happens currently, for 3 seconds. And if there's a way of doing this via an addon then so much the better. Whatever works!
Does this all make sense somewhat? I'm sorry if I've broken any formatting rules or something by posting such a long and wordy question! Just thought I might as well be detailed.
So, after struggling with horrible interface choices of Xcode 4, I'm finally on 5.1.1.
The tabs became almost usable. Double clicking can be configured to open a file in a new tab. Good. Double clicking another file opens it in a new tab. Good. Double clicking first file again switches to previously open tab. Good! Double clicking first file while it is open in current tab opens a second tab with that file. Ok, I can live with that, since from there on they just switch from one to another.
So far a surprisingly sane behavior.
Unless you make a single click in the navigation panel by mistake. Single click opens whatever you click in the current tab, all logic and reason be damned.
The question is, how to change single click behavior to "Use separate tab" (or however Xcode refers to that behavior)?
Is there any way to disable single clicks from doing anything at all aside from highlighting the selection?
There's no option to disable the single-click behavior. Two options that get you close to your desired behavior are:
Use a single separate window for most of your tabs. Use a "main" window that has the file navigator visible, and a separate "work" window with the file navigator hidden. If you want to add a tab to the work window, create it in the main window and then drag it's tab over to the work window. This is an extra step, but you'll never have a single click change any of the tabs that you care about (thought it'll still change the primary or focussed editor in the main window, depending on your settings).
Use separate windows for each file. There's a preference setting that lets you create windows instead of tabs when you double-click a file in the file navigator. Use Mission Control instead of the tab bar to navigate between your files.
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.
I'm using an old version of Visual Studio that provides only the 'interactive' method for setting tab stops. Is there anyway to clear all the tab stops before setting them? Or anyway to exclude a given control from having a tab stop?
Added 10-sept-2009
Part of my problem was confusing tab stop order and tab stops. I naively assumed setting tab stop order, set a tab stop hence much confusion. Thanks for pointing out that tab stops are set in the property box.
You are not clear about your specific VS version, but as far as I remember (back to VC6) you automatically assign the tab order if you simply click once on each control in your desired order. There is usually no need to reset them beforehand.
This hint from a VC6 tutorial might be helpful:
To adjust the tab order of your
controls, you can choose the Tab Order
command from the Layout menu and click
the controls in the order that you
want them to be tabbed. If you have a
complicated dialog box and only want
to change the tab order of a few
controls, you can take a little
shortcut by holding the Ctrl key down
and selecting the last control that
tabs properly before selecting the
controls that tab incorrectly.
Clicking an empty spot in the dialog
box, or pressing Enter, will exit the
tab order mode.
To prevent a control from being
reached using the Tab key, clear the
Tab stop checkbox on the control's
property page.
If you want to change the tab behaviour programmatically, look for the WS_TABSTOP windows style.
Open the dialog whose tab order you want to change. Press Ctrl + D. On the dialog you will see numbers next to each control which indicate the tab order for that control. Click the controls in the order you want the tab order to go.
I am wondering if anyone knows how to pull this off. Here goes.
I have a multi monitor setup, and I maximize Visual Studio to both windows. I create a new vertical document tab control, so that I have one document tab control in each physical screen. This is fine.
Now, I want to be able to make them work as if they were connected. I want to have the designer on one side, and the code related to the displayed designer on the other window.
I'd like it to have the following functionality:
If a item is double clicked on the solution explorer, open designer/code in both tabs.
When a document is selected in either pane, open appropriate file in the other pane.
Make the designer view refresh on edit, or periodically.
Any ideas on how I could pull this off?
Try to check (wait) for VS 2010 (beta now). There should be multi monitor support.