How to disable floating tabs in Visual Studio 2010

Question

I now use the new Visual Studio 2010 and I experience something very annoying that wasn't happening before with Visual Studio 2008. Something changed with the way it handles the floating of tabs and I can't stand it. Every once in a while, I would somehow trigger the floating of a tab instead of just switching to it. It may have to do with the way I click (maybe a very fast double click gets sent), or maybe I very slightly drag the mouse when clicking the tab. I don't know. All I know is that I was fine with Visual Studio 2008.

Is there a way to disable this somewhere? I want to either un-register the double click as a floating tab trigger, or remove the floating option altogether.

How can I do that?

Thanks.

Grillo

By the way, my OS is Windows XP if that matters to anybody. – Grillo

Yeah, you're dragging the mouse, causing the tab to be "undocked" from its parent container. It's incredible so many people have had this problem inadvertently. – Rawdan

Answer 1

It looks like the latest edition of Productivity Power Tools includes features to change how the tabs are displayed / can be used. It does not currently support disabling of floating tabs or disabling dragging tabs off the dock; but in the comments section of the page, there is mention of adding it in future versions.

Bonus feature: middle click scrolling.

Heterotopia

The current version of Productivity Power Tools does support disabling floating tabs: it's in Options > Productivity Power Tools > Document Tab Well > Floating Docs > [ ] Enable floating tab well. Unchecking this stopped all the SSDT Juneau tabs from opening floating for me. – Caruthers

Thanks, this is a great tool and while I haven't been able to give it a try I trust Nicholas that the newest version fixes the problem once and for all. I will change the accepted solution to this answer. – Grillo

The setting that fixed it for me is Options > Productivity Power Tools > Document Tab Well > [Advanced_Options...] > [ ] Enable float on double-click – Photoengraving

@NicholasRiley Not for me, unfortunately. I tried disabling the floating tab well, but it will still allow dragging tabs off the tab bar and floating them, which I keep doing by accident!! I just want the tabs to move left or right, nothing else. – Bludge

Yeah, not the same thing; I was just talking about the tabs initially opening as floating, not what you can do accidentally afterward. Sorry! – Caruthers

Answer 2

I'm not sure how to disable it, but if you hold Ctrl and double click the tab again, it will dock back to its last position.

I found this very annoying but with Ctrl+DoubleClick the problem is not so painful anymore.

Repentance

I didn't know about this Ctrl + DoubleClick trick, it works. I suppose that's better than nothing... Thanks. – Grillo

It is a workaround method, in my current version 2019, I suppose it does nothing and when I would like to drag, simply some other keystrokes do. – Scorpius

I feel like this should be marked the answer since it's the only current remedy. It worked for me in VS 2022. – Satang

Answer 3

For anyone who actually wants the answer to this, in my version of Productivity Power Tools (v10.0.20626.18) there is a way to disable this "feature".

Tools->Options->Productivity Power Tools->Document Tab Well->General->Advanced Options...

Under the "Floating Tab Well" group box, uncheck "Enable float on double-click"

Linet

Answer 4

It looks like the tabsstudio add-in could do what you want (disable the double click cause for un-docking at least), however it's not free. ($49) *disclaimer: I didn't try it myself.

Plus it looks like it does some other cool stuff.

Photoengraving

Answer 5

I had this same problem - none of the above answers fixed my problem. I finally figured what my particular issue was:

I had inadvertently opened a Document Outline window on one of my xaml pages, and switching between that page and others was rearranging the tab bar. Either because of VS itself, or a combination of the add-ons I use, VS seemed to be interpreting this tab bar movement as a mouse drag, and was undocking whatever tab I switched to from the tab with the Document Outline. I closed the Document Outline box and now I no longer want to murder Visual Studio.

Gyrfalcon

Answer 6

This, solve the problem! just close "Document Outline" Window.

Neuberger

Answer 7

What worked for me is; checking the "show pinned tabs in a separate row" setting in tools/options/enviroment/tabs and windows. this makes it much easier to move rows from left to right, without them suddenly popping out. hope this helps

Terrenceterrene