Sublime Forum

**tito** · January 13, 2016, 7:13am

**UPDATE: **From build 2198, there is a new setting “preview_on_click” for controlling the behaviour.

This have been commented many times in the past.

My plugin NoPreview stopped working and it is very difficult to use the SideBarEnhancements and SideBarGit packages when a preview tab popups.

A request with little improvements about the preview feature has been mentioned in Dev Build 2134
and I Present To You: The Sublime Manifesto

There is in-countable reports about this being confusing or useless in some circumstances.

**UPDATE: **From build 2198, there is a new setting “preview_on_click” for controlling the behaviour.

**C0D312** · January 13, 2016, 7:13am

Wrong. I counted 15.

I’m still partial toward my recommended additions to the preview feature ( i.e. Adding the ‘x’ to the preview to close the preview and make it more obvious that the previous file was not lost. )

**tito** · January 13, 2016, 7:13am

[quote=“C0D312”]I’m still partial toward my recommended additions to the preview feature ( i.e. Adding the ‘x’ to the preview to close the preview and make it more obvious that the previous file was not lost. )
[/quote]

That’s a good addition, i’m with you.

But my request here is to allow a complete disable of this feature.

Sometimes the files that I right-click start loading and I can’t use any function of my plugins because the file is locked by the editor. Hope you can understand that this feature generates on me more headaches than solutions.

Also, when a preview pop-up, you lost focus of you current tab. I don’t know how do you expect to solve that. I don’t want to lose my current tab.

**C0D312** · January 13, 2016, 7:13am

I understand the desire to disable the preview feature, but the fact that this hasn’t already been implement suggests to me that it’s a bigger burden on Jon’s half than simply flipping a switch. My guess is it’s tightly entangled in other features. For example, the GoTo File. How should the goto file degrade (without having the instant previews as you search)? Should preview only be disable for clicks in the sidebar? Then more problems arise…

I may be completely off base though. Maybe Jon secretly has a switch called “Disable Preview” that he’s just not sharing

But if I am right and disabling the preview is too big of a hassle, I think improving it both functionally and visually with eliminate the headaches.

But I’m sure Jon’s well aware of all of this (I guarantee he’s seen all of the posts you’ve linked to) and he’s bound to surprise us with what’s to come

**hereswhatidid** · January 13, 2016, 7:14am

Just wanted to add my support for the ability to disable the preview feature. It makes working with several tabs open at once very difficult as you lose the focus of the current tab when the preview launches and then have to relocate that tab after clicking back from the preview.

**agibsonsw** · January 13, 2016, 7:14am

I believe a temporary work is around is to press Ctrl-Tab which (seems to…) revert to the previous view/ last active tab.

Rather than disabling the preview, perhaps it’s possible to persuade (single-)clicking a file in the sidebar to cause it to open? But perhaps someone’s already achieved this somewhere

**varenc** · January 13, 2016, 7:14am

I’m interested in disabling preview too.

My issue is that I’m dealing with a very large code base sometimes with some very large files. I love the quick open, but I only need it to search through paths, showing me the file contents with every key press seems so strain it. I get some poor and laggy performance with sublime text 2 when opening up new files this way. Any ideas on how to combat this?

**tito** · January 13, 2016, 7:16am

twitter.com/#!/xubz/status/181829294807449600

**sbloom** · January 13, 2016, 7:17am

Would like to be able to disable preview. I find it intrusive most of the time.

**tito** · January 13, 2016, 7:18am

Very frustrating this issue/feature, I need to close the editor many times in a day. Please do something.

JUSt allow to disable the preview when clicking a file in sidebar. That would be enough.

**bizoo** · January 13, 2016, 7:18am

Welcome back !!!

**quarnster** · January 13, 2016, 7:18am

Would something like this work for you?

[code]import sublime
import sublime_plugin

class ClosePreview(sublime_plugin.EventListener):
def init(self):
super(sublime_plugin.EventListener, ClosePreview).init(self)
self.last_activated = None

def on_load(self, view):
    if self.last_activated != None and view.file_name() != self.last_activated:
        sublime.active_window().open_file(self.last_activated)

def on_activated(self, view):
    fn = view.file_name()
    if fn != None:
        self.last_activated = fn

def on_close(self, view):
    if view.file_name() == self.last_activated:
        self.last_activated = None

[/code]

**tito** · January 13, 2016, 7:18am

Thank you very much for trying, but this is not working.

We need from jon to Please remove the preview caused from clicks on sidebar tree, both from left and right clicks.

**tito** · January 13, 2016, 7:19am

I considering quitting from this editor and community. This is the most disruptive behaviour I have seen in a software.

**C0D312** · January 13, 2016, 7:19am

don’t leave… we’ll miss you

**jps** · January 13, 2016, 7:19am

What functionality doesn’t work for you while a file is being loaded, is it just delete and rename?

**bizoo** · January 13, 2016, 7:19am

[quote=“tito”]Thank you very much for trying, but this is not working.

We need from jon to Please remove the preview caused from clicks on sidebar tree, both from left and right clicks.[/quote]

I don’t want the preview to be disabled !!! It’s a great feature, maybe disturbing at first but very useful after.

Maybe I’m the only one here, but I don’t need (and don’t want) my text editor to be a file manager (my OS as already one) or a complete version control manager.
IMHO, you try to use sidebar for something that it was not intended for.

**nick1** · January 13, 2016, 7:19am

I think tito just wants an option to disable it. Seems reasonable – any user-facing feature should be toggle-able, IMO.

**tito** · January 13, 2016, 7:19am

Yes, just an option to disable it. The ability to disable the feature from the clicks on sidebar would be enough.

I can’t delete/rename or use git/hg/svn or any other useful function provided by a package while a file is loading. This is expected behaviour if were opening the file. But I never opened the file. I clicked or selected it.
Think of right click revert/checkout to/cut/paste. CTRL+ Click, click, click cut/paste. This is not possible with some files at the moment.

The other unacceptable problem of this feature is that makes me lose focus of the current tab on every click.

**hced** · January 13, 2016, 7:20am

FWIW, here’s another formal request to make the sidebar’s preview-on-click functionality optional.

Request to allow disabling of "Preview Tab/View"