Highlight tabs which their names closly resemble

[vsync]

Working with 20+ tabs on client-side code, normally I have several HTML, CSS & JS files opened.

normally a component or controller will have a CSS & HTML file, sometimes JS. They have more or less similar name, per component, so for example a “tabs” component will probably have these files:

• comp.tabs.css
• comp.tab-item.html"
• comp.tabs.js

what would REALLY help me here is to highlight all other relevant tabs to the one i’m currently editing, to quickly see what is currently open and is probably related to the currently edited one. I envision this is a sublime setting with “sensitivity” setting, which will determine how to find those other tabs, what background color to highlight them at and so on.

[math2001]

20+ tabs

WHAT??? Do you know the goto anything? Try ctrl+p. You shouldn’t have more than 5 tabs open.

Get use to close and reopen file.

Matt

[vsync]

@math2001 - I’ve been doing hardcore client-side for the past 12 years and programming for over 20, so I think I know how many open tabs are comfortable for me to work with. and yes, I know Ctrl+P, which is a very basic feature only a complete novice wouldn’t know of, and it helps in some situations. I work on highly complex applications and yes, I do work on more than 20 files simultaneously (I am highly skillful apparently since it surprises you as much. I thought it was normal) and I can’t start typing in the fuzzy file search (ctrl+p) menu every 10 seconds when i’m jumping between files. not to mention they have very complex and similar names (and I want to make work easier, not to strain my memory into thinking what was that file name for this one file I need right now).

my request is easy to implement and closing files is out of the question. out of the 20 or so I work on routinely, I also work on TONS of others, which are not a part of the dailly assignments and I obviously do look for those using Ctrl+P, but these cases are more rare then the commonly used files.

closing and re-opening files ~5 times a minute won’t help me work faster obviously. especially when you have hundreds of files. your solution will not save any time, at all. I want to use my memory is less as possible, to keep the work flowing without petty distractions as to stop and think of which file name to type to search for.

[math2001]

I do work on more than 20 files simultaneously (I am highly skillful apparently since it surprises you as much. I thought it was normal)

??? It’s not because you have 20 tabs open that you are highly skillful. i guess it makes you a messy guy, that’s all.

OK, you want you keep your old habits, never change, that’s how you get better (not sure, right).

How to you remember which tab you want to edit? With their position? Do you use ctrl+tab? Or something else?

Concerning your feature, it’s going to depend on the theme. So, I maybe you could do something like this

{
    "class": "tab_control",
    "atrribute": ["highlight1"],
    "layer0.texture": "..."
}
// etc

and then, on the context menu of the tabs, something like this:

• Set Highlight
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5

But, it’s not implemented and the only solution that comes to my mind, so you’re going to have to wait…

Matt

[vsync]

stop being condescending. the scope here is not to question my methods of work, but to help people that have the same method of work as I do. I am a paying customer and I an free to suggest something that will be of high importance to my work methods.

keep your insults to yourself, you don’t even know me and have no right calling me messy.
It astonishes me how dare you to even say that.

[kingkeith]

there’s also a similar request here:

Changing theme (or just tab color) of individual tabs

What I would like to do is be able to easily distinguish tabs or groups of tabs from each other by color. For example, If I'm working on two projects concurrently, I would like to color all the tabs for one project red, and all the tabs for the other project blue. Is it possible to implement this with the current api? Note that I am not looking to have different colors based on file types. Two files with the same type should be able to have different colors, and two files of different types sh…

[vsync]

Thanks but I don’t want to change the background of the file at all, just the tab background, and my suggestion is to make this automatically, so I won’t need to start giving tab colors manually for similar ones. it’s not that difficult to do, you just need to come up with 1-2 ways and adjust the setting for the automatic matching (by name).

right now I just need to remember where every file is by the location of the tab index which is annoying for a large number of constantly changing but still large amount of tabs that must stay open to keep the workflow consistent without any delays of fetch the files with ctrl+p

[OdatNurd]

Mm… I was going to suggest that if you had two versions of your chosen color scheme, one with a slightly different background color than the other (lighter/darker/etc) you could create a little plugin that catches on_activated and flips the color scheme of all views in the current window using it so that matching files use one version and all other files use the other. However that would affect the background color of the document as well.

Also, not having tried it I don’t know what the performance impact might be of swapping color schemes a bunch.

[barth]

I suggest opening a new window to put the grouped files together, or rearrange the tabs so similar ones are adjacent.

Neither is ideal.

ST already has concept of groups, but they are tied to panes. I guess what you want is to have groups but without splitting the windows. Maybe ST can add two levels of tabs, one for groups and one for views.

Group1   |   [Group2]  |  Group 3
----------------------------------
File 1  |   File 2  |  [File 3]

[vsync]

I don’t understand why can’t the author/s of sublime just give users control over tabs colors (and not the tab’s window color). such a simple yet powerful request.

I will try the “on_activated” thing @OdatNurd has mentioned along site setting different schemes per syntax…hope it would be easy to set up and would work nicely!

I already have split windows with multiple tabs which I have meaningful order, but this is so much manual work to create those windows and order my tabs, which keeps changing… nothing is as good as real support. I would have to switch to Atom just for this… I’m a huge fan of Sublime for years.

[addons_zz]

to highlight all other relevant tabs to the one i’m currently editing

Seems a very good feature, does Atom do it?
I suggest open an Issue on the core: https://github.com/SublimeTextIssues/Core/issues

How does this feature should work exactly?
How to give colors to each tab?

Instead of use just colors, what about to use also icons as on the Windows task bar? Example:

I often do have several programs and folders open, as the image. On the Sublime Text, the package https://github.com/oivva/sublime-file-icons, introduce to Sublime Text several missing icons for the side bar.

What is missing for this to be implemented is an API to allow change/give icons and colors to each Tab. And also allow the tabs title’s, to be based on the file it has opened.

When I say give colors/icons to a tab, I am not talking about its contents, but the tab title itself.