Allow to sort tabs like you can sort open editors

[mindplay-dk]

Not sure if I should report this as a bug or a feature request, but it's a pretty clear UX problem.

It's not easy to explain in words, so I've recorded this video to illustrate the problem:

Note that I've changed the order in Open Editors to alphabetical.

As you can see, when I navigate between editors (using CTRL + PAGE UP/DOWN) this makes sense for tabs, since navigation between open editors happens in tab order.

But if I hide the tabs (in an attempt to replicate an experience something akin to vertical tabs) the navigation order makes no sense at all - it just bounces around "randomly" between open editors.

What most likely needs to happen, is the order option needs to apply both to Open Editors and to Tabs - since they're modifying the same state, and since that's the only way this navigation is going to make any sense to someone who has either both tabs and Open Editors showing, or Open Editors only with no tabs.

I hope this explanation makes sense?

Most likely this issue should be tracked with other related issues in #27286.

[bpasero]

The "Open Editors" sorting setting does not at all apply to tabs, so the commands you run are not impacted by the order in "Open Editors" view.

You can see from the implementation that the commands navigate strictly in visual order of opened tabs:

vscode/src/vs/workbench/browser/parts/editor/editorActions.ts

Lines 1134 to 1140 in 731b71c

	// Navigate in active group if possible
	const activeGroup = editorGroupService.activeGroup;
	const activeGroupEditors = activeGroup.getEditors(EditorsOrder.SEQUENTIAL);
	const activeEditorIndex = activeGroup.activeEditor ? activeGroupEditors.indexOf(activeGroup.activeEditor) : -1;
	if (activeEditorIndex + 1 < activeGroupEditors.length) {
	return { editor: activeGroupEditors[activeEditorIndex + 1], groupId: activeGroup.id };
	}

[mindplay-dk]

The "Open Editors" sorting setting does not at all apply to tabs

I know, I'm suggesting it should:

What most likely needs to happen, is the order option needs to apply both to Open Editors and to Tabs - since they're modifying the same state, and since that's the only way this navigation is going to make any sense to someone who has either both tabs and Open Editors showing, or Open Editors only with no tabs.

In other words, tabs are essentially a list of open editors, and the "open editors" view is the same list of open editors - these are two views of the same information.

As things are, the "open editors" view is no use with keyboard navigation in alphabetical mode - so I think the sorting needs to apply both to open tabs and open editors, and the keyboard navigation needs to take into account alphabetical mode.

[vscodenpa]

This feature request is now a candidate for our backlog. The community has 60 days to upvote the issue. If it receives 20 upvotes we will move it to our backlog. If not, we will close it. To learn more about how we handle feature requests, please see our documentation.

Happy Coding!

[vscodenpa]

This feature request has not yet received the 20 community upvotes it takes to make to our backlog. 10 days to go. To learn more about how we handle feature requests, please see our documentation.

Happy Coding!

[vscodenpa]

🙁 In the last 60 days, this feature request has received less than 20 community upvotes and we closed it. Still a big Thank You to you for taking the time to create this issue! To learn more about how we handle feature requests, please see our documentation.

Happy Coding!

[mindplay-dk]

apparently I don't have the necessary social media reach to open issues here. 😕