adding tab support to apps that dont have it

[kalos]

hello!

is there any way to make a program work in tabs, while it has not native support for it?

for example, notepad, many instances of notepad open as seperate windows, is there a way to make all instances appear as tabs of one window?

thanks!

[eleman]

We call it Notepad++

[f0dder]

There's no generic way to do it.

You can do app-specific hacks, with pretty mixed results... but that's it.

[joiwind]

@kalos - I don't know if this is what you want but there is an app that puts all open windows of whatever programs are running into one tabbed interface : Wintabber.

There's also : Window tabifier

[cmpm]

another notepad with tabs-Notepad With Tabs
it will not replace notepad but I'm sure it can be set to open the files you want

http://techie-buzz.com/featured/notepad-with-tabs.html

plus there is Metapad talked about
for the more advanced user

As far as other programs, I guess you have to find them one at a time like f0dder said.

[kalos]

@cmpm, @elenman
please note that I just refered to notepad as an example, I know there are many notepad replacements with native tab support, but I am asking something else

@f0dder
that seems interesting, any more info about these hacks?

@joiwind
thanks, I am researching the links you pasted

[rjbull]

plus there is Metapad talked about

If that's this Metapad, then I don't think it supports multiple files in tabs.

[cmpm]

Yes you are correct rjbull, no tabs.
It had so much I thought it did.

Anyway here's another notepad with tabs.

http://freddy1990.com/index.php?page=product&name=caderno

It's probably on this site somewhere, but to give another choice.
There it is with some coolness to it.

[MilesAhead]

Also there's PsPad
http://www.pspad.com/

and EditPadLite7
http://www.editpadlite.com/download.html

PsPad has the notion of a Project where it will have all open files on tabs and a list of all files in the Project on the left ready to open on double click.

EditPadLite7 boasts column cut & paste among other features.

[kalos]

please, the topic is not about a tabbed text editor, but about a way to group to tabs, windows of an app that does not natively support tabs

[MilesAhead]

please, the topic is not about a tabbed text editor, but about a way to group to tabs, windows of an app that does not natively support tabs

If you don't see anything for download on sites like Softpedia, C-Net, PCMag, then it's likely because it's not really feasible.  Programs that assume they only use one window or form are just structured differently than those written for multiple windows/tabs/forms. Pretty tough to force from outside.

[steeladept]

If you can structure entire OS's into tabs using virtualization, I can't imagine it being any more difficult (and quite a bit less) to create a generic tabbing window that you can open individual apps within.  It may not be the most efficient or best way to do it, but it would certainly fulfill the need and is exactly what I think Kalos was after. Windows already enforces the one app per window, so you would just need to add a tab-like extention that can be yet another view just like tile, full screen, or cascade.  Not saying it is easy, but certainly not as hard as you seem to make it out to be either.

[MilesAhead]

Right. I wonder how many programmer man hours went into VirtualBox? Anything feasible is likely to be of the nature of the Tabbing utilities already mentioned. It amounts to a fancy cascade, not multiple windows to one process. You can't force a single instance application design on a program from the outside.

[Paul Keith]

Not quite tabs but it's slightly more "detailed" than alt+tab.

Tasky

Allows Launchy to search window titles of currently open windows giving users a convenient way to switch between tasks.

http://www.launchy.net/plugins.php

[kalos]

so far, I found Window tabifier to do excellent job

but the main drawback is that it does not tabify windows of a specific program automatically, I have to choose the windows and tabify them manually

is there any solution to this?

[skwire]

Write the author of the program and request the feature you want.

[Paul Keith]

so far, I found Window tabifier to do excellent job

but the main drawback is that it does not tabify windows of a specific program automatically, I have to choose the windows and tabify them manually

is there any solution to this?

I don't know. When I tried the program it seems to have replaced my Firefox with a FoldForm tab that doesn't show anything.

[f0dder]

Windows already enforces the one app per window

Umm, what?

[jgpaiva]

Not sure if this helps, but from my experience with develping GridMove in Win7, windows enforces a strict per-app partitioning, and GridMove is unable to access other process's windows unless it is running with elevated privileges.
I'd say this is the kind of think that even if it exists, it would become deprecated fast as I believe Windows is moving fast  in the direction of having all apps running in user space.