Hi everyone!
I recently opened a feature request about adding most-recently-used tab switching to the Defold editor:
https://github.com/defold/defold/issues/12429
The idea is that Ctrl+Tab / Ctrl+Shift+Tab, or separate configurable shortcuts, could switch between open editor tabs based on recent usage rather than their visual order in the tab bar.
This is the workflow I often run into: I work with several related files at the same time, such as a collection, script, GUI file, atlas, or material. These files are not always next to each other in the tab bar, so switching through tabs in visual order can require several key presses or manual clicking.
In editors like VS Code, recently used tabs become quick to switch between, which makes it easy to jump back and forth between the files currently relevant to the task.
I’m curious if other Defold users run into the same thing:
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Do you often switch between editor tabs using the keyboard?
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Would most-recently-used tab switching be useful for your workflow?
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Would you prefer this as a separate shortcut, an editor preference, or both?
I added more details and GIF examples in the GitHub issue. Would be happy to hear what others think.
TLDR: Most of the time I switch between 2-3 tabs and would love to be able to have ctrl+tab behaviour simmilar to alt+tab on Windows/Linux, essentialy second GIF in the Github issuee.
Full text:
Oh, I didn’t know you can switch with Ctrl+Tab! Good to know, but sadly not too useful for me. I tend to have too many tabs open, whether it’s in a browser, Defold or any other software that uses tabs. So cycling through them adds little to no value for me personally. Most of the time, I switch between two or at most three files.
I also like how Alt+Tab works on Windows (or Linux). Windows/Linux highlight the selection between Tab presses as long as you hold Alt and that helps a lot because you may not remember which tab you were on two or three tabs ago.
However, it might be tricky to implement in Defold without breaking the current behavior. Right now, Defold switches tabs immediately on Tab press, so there’s no way to tell whether the next Ctrl+Tab should take you back to the previous tab or to the next one in the stack.
Another alternative is to use the Open Asset panel for navigation. This is what I currently do when I need to quickly jump between files that are far away from each other in the tab bar: I open the Open Asset panel using a keyboard shortcut, type the name of the file I need, press Enter, and the editor switches to that file’s tab.
I do the same, but just keep Asset panel open all the time and just double click on file that interests me.
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