Organize Your Windows with the Tab Bar Emacs 27

¶What is it?

New feature in Emacs 27
Manage window configurations as “tabs”
Basically provides support for workspaces in Emacs!
Different than tab-line-mode

Manual: https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_node/emacs/Tab-Bars.html

¶How is it useful?

Separate workspaces for different tasks
One tab per project
A tab for your Org notes and agenda, split vertically
A tab for chat or ERC

¶Basic Usage

tab-bar-mode - Enable display of the tab bar
tab-new (C-x t 2) - Create a new tab
tab-next (C-x t o, evil: g t) - Move to the next tab (also known as tab-bar-switch-to-next-tab)
tab-bar-switch-to-prev-tab (evil: g T) - Switch to the previous tab
tab-rename (C-x t r) - Rename the current tab (or numbered tab with prefix arg)
tab-close (C-x t 0) - Close the current tab
tab-close-other (C-x t 1) - Close other tabs
tab-bar-undo-close-tab - Reopen the last closed tab
tab-move (C-x t m) - Move the current tab to the right (or left with negative prefix)
tab-bar-select-tab-by-name (C-x t RET) - Select tab by name using completion

¶Configuring operation

tab-bar-new-tab-choice - The name of a buffer or file to display in new tabs
tab-bar-new-tab-to - Where to place new tabs (left or right of current) - Also a function!
tab-bar-tab-name-function - Control how new tabs are named (can prompt for a name!)

(setq tab-bar-new-tab-choice "*scratch*")

¶Configuring tab-bar appearance

tab-bar-close-button-show - Show or hide the close button
tab-bar-new-button-show - Show or hide the new button at the end
tab-bar-button-relief - Control pixel width of tab bar button appearance
tab-bar face - customize text of tabs
tab-bar-tab face - customize the color of the active tab
tab-bar-tab-inactive face - customize the color of inactive tabs

(setq tab-bar-close-button-show nil
      tab-bar-new-button-show nil)

¶Using tab-bar-mode without showing the bar

;; Don't turn on tab-bar-mode when tabs are created
(setq tab-bar-show nil)

;; Get the current tab name for use in some other display
(defun efs/current-tab-name ()
  (alist-get 'name (tab-bar--current-tab)))

One downside to this is that doom-modeline (currently) stops showing the tab name in the mode line when tab-bar-mode isn’t turned on.