You can organize multiple document windows and tool windows into either vertical or horizontal tab groups and shuffle documents from one tab group to another. Tab groups extend your ability to manage limited workspace while you're working with two or more open documents in the IDE.
The following screenshot shows an example of how to personalize the color scheme of tabs: To do so, right-click on a tab and select Set Tab Color to pick from the palette. New in Visual Studio 2022 version 17.1 and later: You can also choose your own tab colors. The following screenshot shows an example of color tabs in the horizontal view: The following screenshot shows an example of color tabs in the vertical view: New in Visual Studio 2022 version 17.0 and later: You can now colorize tabs in both vertical and horizontal views in the Editor. To use color tabs, navigate to Tools > Options > Environment > Tabs and Windows, and then select Colorize document tabs by project.
The file opens for editing if you modify it or choose Open. Preview files appear in a tab on the right side of the document tab well. You can preview files by choosing them in Solution Explorer, during debugging when you step into files, with Go to Definition, and when you browse through results of a search. In the Preview tab, you can view files in the editor without opening them. For example, you can view a preview of a file in the editor without opening the file, you can group your tabs, and more. You can use tabs to arrange your layout in several different ways. Click Remove Split on the Window menu to restore the single view. To divide your document into two independently scrolling sections, click Split on the Window menu. When you have to view or edit two locations at once in a document, you can split windows. For example, you can display more than one web browser window, and you can create additional instances of some tool windows by choosing New Window on the Window menu. You can display more than one instance of certain tool windows at a time. Right click on a window tab or title bar to see additional options for that specific window. The Window menu shows options for docking, floating, and hiding windows in the IDE. Right-click on the tab or title bar to set other options on the window. Document windows can be dragged by their tab. Tool windows can be resized and dragged by their title bar.
Document windows contain source code files, arbitrary text files, config files, and so on. Tool windows include Solution Explorer, Server Explorer, Output Window, Error List, the designers, the debugger windows, and so on. The IDE has two basic window types, tool windows and document windows. For example, you could create a layout for editing and a layout for debugging, and switch between them by using the Window > Apply Window Layout menu command. You can also name and save a custom layout and then switch between layouts with a single command.
For example, if you change the docking location of Solution Explorer and then close Visual Studio, the next time that you open Visual Studio, even if you're working on another computer, Solution Explorer will be docked in that same location. When you customize the layout, the IDE remembers it. In Visual Studio, you can customize the position, size, and behavior of windows to create window layouts that work best for various development workflows.