[feature request] navigate to tab number

[uvtc]

When you have a large number of files open, but are just working on less than a handful of them, it gets difficult to quickly hop between them. There should be an easy way to do this. Description of what I've tried follows, then my feature request is at the end.

I've tried using the Documents tab in the sidebar, but that means searching around in there every time.

I've tried tried dragging the document tabs near to eachother, but once you're on the tab you want, it's not easy to find the tab you want it next to. And even if you find it, it's not easy to drag the tab there (it takes multiple jumps, clicking the tabs arrows, dragging again). This takes a while to set up, and then you have to do it again if you change the few files you're working on.

I've tried the split-window, and this works ok if there's only 2 files I'm working on / jumping between, but is no help when there's 3 or 4, which is common for me.

I've tried the numberedbookmarks plug-in, and it appears to allow the setting of numbered bookmarks in different files, but trying to navigate between the bookmarks failed (in at least one strange way and also crashed Geany).

I've tried the Commander plug-in, but there's two problems: one is that I'm working on two files with the same name (say, "Main.hx"), and I've got 5 more with that name that are open in other directories. So it takes searching around in the pop-up list to find the one I want. The second issue though is that the Command Panel does similar match instead of exact match, so many more choices pop up besides. And anyway, the Commander seems to support lots of actions, but I only a fast way to switch between tabs.

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So here's my idea / feature request:

1. If Geany doesn't do this already, make all tabs (open files) have an implicit id number --- a small integer (maybe assigned in the order the files get opened?). So, if there's 20 files open, there's ids ranging from 1 to 20.

2. Have the tab number displayed in the status bar at the bottom of the screen.

3. A key-combination would open a small dialog where you type a number (the tab number) and hit Enter to be taken to that tab. Similar to how Ctrl-L opens up a dialog and you can choose the line number you want to go to. (I see that Ctrl-L actually sends me to the "go to line" field in the toolbar, but the "Search --> "Go to Line"" menu item brings up the small dialog.)

[uvtc]

4. When I hit the key-combo and the dialog comes up, if I've used it before, the number field is pre-populated with the last tab number I just came from, so I only need to hit Enter to accept that tab number and bounce back to it.

[codebrainz]

I've tried the numberedbookmarks plug-in, and it appears to allow the setting of numbered bookmarks in different files, but trying to navigate between the bookmarks failed (in at least one strange way and also crashed Geany).

I also did not have success in testing this plugin before answering your mailing list message, but perhaps it would be better to have a bug report against the NumberedBookmarks plugin in the geany-plugins repository? It sure does sound like it's supposed to do exactly what you were wanting.

The plugin is listed as maintained so it might get fixed.

[uvtc]

Ok, to start off I just created geany/geany-plugins#990 .