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I suggest some sort of colouring system for the tabs in Eclipse which would indicate what project each file belonged to. Sometimes, I have an old version of the same file opened in multiple tabs, and it causes a lot of confusion about which is the newer file and which is the older one. It would just also help in general to code faster when working on multiple projects. There might be also be a better solution, like somehow grouping the tabs together.
Created attachment 19667 [details] Perhaps like this? This might be how such a feature would look.
This is somewhat related to Bug 19812.
Just to add some additional context as to why I would find this enhancement appealing. When using CVS, it is very common for me to have the same project checked out as multiple Eclipse projects. If I open the same file in both projects there is no visual cue on the tab. I have to hover over the tab long enough to figure which project it belongs to. For that matter, the package explorer tree view can sometimes get confusing when those two projects are adjacent. If you scroll too fast and have both project trees expanded you sometimes inadvertently scroll to the second project without realizing it. Color coding the tree also would be helpful (I suppose that would be a seperate but related enhancement).
See also Bug 96332.
Moving Dougs bugs
*** Bug 183256 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
As mentioned in bug 168379: > Has anyone thought of tab groups and tab colouring? See > http://piro.sakura.ne.jp/xul/tabextensions/index.html.en#screenshots for some great ideas. BTW, for colouring a tree as in comment 3, you can use Mylar to assign colours to files or a colour to a bug or task you're working on (and then files get coloured automatically as they're added to that bug's context).
As per http://wiki.eclipse.org/Platform_UI/Bug_Triage_Change_2009
Remy is now responsible for watching the [EditorMgmt] component area.
Hi everyone, I've been thinking of this 10-year-old suggested feature over a few months, and I believe it would be nice to discuss it again. Thomas Enebo described the issue pretty well in comment three. Indeed, when one works with multiple projects, things may become confusing and mistakes during editing are quite likely to occur. This is especially topical if you are often having a similar project structure, e.g. the same CMS. Here are the examples of confusions I face almost every day: 1. When scrolling through the files in the Project Explorer, I occasionally find myself clicking on a right file in a wrong project (e.g. config.yml). The name of the project may be out of the viewport when too may subfolders have been expanded. 2. When switching between tabs to edit a certain file, I sometimes realise that the file is from the wrong project and I have just screwed the things up (thanks to git and the local history, there’s no damage except for the time loss). This problem happens even despite that the editor tab is in sync with the Project Explorer, so I am potentially able to see the project name in a neighbouring view (this step requires switch of attention and is therefore missed sometimes). 3. When I want to copy something from one project to another, I end up struggling with locating both source and destination (e.g. I have just initialised a new project and want to reuse some stuff). This operation requires a lot of scrolling back and fourth to figure out in which project I am currently at. I’m sure others can easily name a number of other cases. Similar issues are common in database management, e.g. when you have a local and a production database opened in some interface. Here the loss of your attention can cost you damaging of some really important data (e.g. you select and drop a live table thinking that this is a local one). PGAdmin (an app for managing Postrgres databases) helps users avoid these slips by letting them to assign a colour to a server. The list of elements on the left may have varying background, and because colour is a preattentive visual variable, recalling the server costs minimal mental effort (see attached screenshot). I think that a similar approach can be used in eclipse. User can be allowed to assign a colour to each project and this may lead to: – a change of a background in the Project Explorer – a change in the gradient in the tab headers – a change in the background colour inside an editor All can be optional. The good thing about this potential approach is that the hints will be very subtle yet very powerful. Pastel colours will not interfere with any other visual cues yet give much more sense about where the user currently is. If background colour is used for mapping some variable already, a hint in the Project explorer can be replaced with a vertical stripe on the side of the list. Background colour in editors can be replaced with a neatly glowing frame. I believe that this little feature has a potential to save crazy amount of time for thousands of people.
Created attachment 255242 [details] pgadmin server colour (see comment 10)
