Vscode: Tab sizes should be a fixed size

[karai17]

• VSCode Version: 1.18
• OS Version: Fedora 26

In my above screenshot I have several tabs open, all of them being a variable length. This can cause some frustration when trying to close several tabs as you generally cannot just click X a few times and have tabs disappear, you must continuously re-position the cursor which is both frustrating and times unnecessary time.

I think managing tabs in a similar fashion to how Google Chrome does it would be handy. All tabs are the same size and the more tabs fill up your screen, the smaller they get to accommodate. Then, if you start closing tabs, they stay the same, shrunken size until you move your cursor off of the tab bar, at which they resize to fill the space.

It would also be handy if all tabs had an X on them, not just the current selected tab.

[bpasero]

I would say this is a duplicate of https://github.com/Microsoft/vscode/issues/15048

[StefanScherer]

First, thanks for improving and letting the user choose the behaviour with workbench.editor.tabSizing!
It was difficult to google for it as most hits are about the tab sizes IN the editor itself :-)

I now tried this new user setting in VSCode 1.19.1 with "workbench.editor.tabSizing": "shrink", but this is still not what is described here.
Open some files with different long file names. Then try to close some tabs by just tapping on touch pad multiple times. I can do this in Safari, in Chrome, in Atom. But in VSCode it doesn't feel "right" as I often miss the next close button in the tab due to the different size of each tab (eg. when there's a very short file name).

So I wouldn't say this is a duplicate. It's more a suggestion to add "workbench.editor.tabSizing": "fixed" to make more users happy.

[StefanScherer]

@bpasero So do I understand this right that adding .tab.sizing-fixed and .tab.sizing-fixed.tab.close-button-off and the fixed option and description in a similar way to https://github.com/Microsoft/vscode/pull/39176/files#diff-7cd861a374426e39c37cb48fd70bbc65R53 could help for this issue?

Now I have to learn to go from user to developer mode and start building vscode from source to test this so I can try to send a PR for that... :-)

[bpasero]

@StefanScherer see https://github.com/Microsoft/vscode/issues/40290

[bpasero]

Reopening to capture the idea of chromes tab model where each tab has the same size and never shows a scrollbar (all tabs shrink in the same way). I think the solution would be very similar to the implementation of tabsizing: shrink, with the only difference that all tabs have the same size.

[BinaryBen]

I came to suggest the Chrome tab model be implemented and adopted by default. Glad to see an issue already opened. Having to reposition the mouse to close a lot of tabs is getting to be a tad annoying. :)

[bpasero]

I feel this is a duplicate of https://github.com/Microsoft/vscode/issues/40290 (which I have renamed now too). Making each tab same size will not solve this issue because there can be a variable number of actions showing up in the editor toolbar that can push tabs around.