Changing Ctrl + Tab behavior for moving between documents in Visual Studio

Question

Is it possible to change how Ctrl + Tab and Shift + Ctrl + Tab work in Visual Studio? I have disabled the popup naviga

Answer 1

After a couple of hours of searching I found a solution how to switch between open documents using CTRL+TAB which move from left to right and SHIFT+ CTRL+ TAB to go right to left.

In short you need to copy and paste this macro:

Imports System
Imports EnvDTE
Imports EnvDTE80
Imports EnvDTE90
Imports System.Diagnostics

Public Module TabCtrl

Public Sub TabForward()
    Dim i As Integer
    Dim activateNext As Boolean = False

    For i = 1 To DTE.Windows.Count
        If DTE.Windows().Item(i).Kind = "Document" Then

            If activateNext Then
                DTE.Windows().Item(i).Activate()
                GoTo done
            End If

            If DTE.Windows().Item(i) Is DTE.ActiveWindow Then
                activateNext = True
            End If
        End If
    Next

    ' Was the last window... go back to the first
    If activateNext Then
        For i = 1 To DTE.Windows.Count
            If DTE.Windows().Item(i).Kind = "Document" Then
                DTE.Windows().Item(i).Activate()
                GoTo done
            End If
        Next
    End If
done:

End Sub

Public Sub TabBackward()
    Dim i As Integer
    Dim activateNext As Boolean = False

    For i = DTE.Windows.Count To 1 Step -1
        If DTE.Windows().Item(i).Kind = "Document" Then

            If activateNext Then
                DTE.Windows().Item(i).Activate()
                GoTo done
            End If

            If DTE.Windows().Item(i) Is DTE.ActiveWindow Then
                activateNext = True
            End If
        End If
    Next

    ' Was the first window... go back to the last
    If activateNext Then
        For i = DTE.Windows.Count To 1 Step -1
            If DTE.Windows().Item(i).Kind = "Document" Then
                DTE.Windows().Item(i).Activate()
                GoTo done
            End If
        Next
    End If
done:

End Sub

End Module

The macro comes from: www.mrspeaker.net/2006/10/12/tab-un-stupidifier/

If you never add a macro to Visual Studio there is a very useful link how to do it.

Answer 2

Visual Studio 2010 has, built in, a way to solve this.

By default, Ctrl+Tab and Ctrl+Shift+Tab are assigned to Window.[Previous/Next]..Document, but you can, through

Tools -> Options -> Environment -> Keyboard,

remove those key assignments and reassign them to Window.[Next/Previous]Tab to add the desired behavior.

Answer 3

I'm 100% in agreement with Jeff.

I had worked on Borland C++ Builder for several years and one of the features I miss most is the 'correct' document tabbing order with Ctrl-Tab. As Jeff said, "The current tab behavior keeps pulling me out of the task and makes me have to pay attention to the tool " is exactly how I feels about this, and I'm very much surprised by the fact that there aren't many people complaining about this.

I think Ctrl-F6 - NextDocumentWindowNav - navigates documents based on the document's last-activated time. This behavior is a lot like how MDI applications used to behave in old days.

With this taken this into account, I usually use Ctrl+F6 to switch between 2 documents (which is pretty handy in switching between .cpp and .h files when working on c++ project) even when there are more than 2 currently opened documents. For example, if you have 10 documents open (Tab1, Tab2, Tab3, ...., Tab10), I click on Tab1 and then Tab2. When I do Ctrl+F6 and release keys, I'll jump to Tab1. Pressing Ctrl+F6 again will take me back to Tab2.

Answer 4

I guess you want what VSS calls Next(Previous)DocumentWindow. By default, it's on Ctrl(-Shift)-F6 on my VSS 8. On Ctrl(-Shift)-Tab they have Next(Previous)DocumentWindowNav. You can change key assignments via Tools/Options/Keyboard.

Answer 5

Navigate to the blog post Visual Studio Tab Un-stupidifier Macro and make use of the macro. After you apply the macro to your installation of Visual Studio you can bind your favorite keyboard shortcuts to them. Also notice the registry fix in the comments for not displaying the macro balloon since they might get annoying after a while.

Answer 6

In Visual Studio 2015 (as well as previous versions of VS, but you must install Productivity Power Tools if you're using VS2013 or below), there are two new commands in Visual Studio:

Window.NextTab and Window.PreviousTab

Just go remap them from Ctrl+Alt+PageUp/Ctrl+Alt+PageDown to Ctrl+Tab/Ctrl+Shift+Tab in:

Menu Tools -> Options -> Environment -> Keyboard

Note: In earlier versions such as Visual Studio 2010, Window.NextTab and Window.PreviousTab were named Window.NextDocumentWellTab and Window.PreviousDocumentWellTab.