How to change control-tab in Notepad++ to web browser style

keyboard shortcutsnotepad

How can I make control-tab (and control-shift-tab) behave sensibly in Notepad++? I would like these shortcuts to behave as they do in my web browser, ie. control-tab moves focus to the next tab to the right, control-shift-tab to the tab to the left. Currently they change tab seemingly at random.

Best Answer

Browse the menu Settings / Preferences / Misc
Look for the box Document Switcher
Uncheck both 'Enable' and 'Enable MRU behaviour' (whatever that is)

Update

The functionality is included by default in Notepad++ v6.4.5 and later. 6.4.5 was released August 9th 2013. Note the current version is 7.5.8 released July 23rd 2018.

If you are using a version of Notepad++ older than v6.4.5, the rest of this answer still applies.

Natively

You can do this natively in Notepad++, but in order to replicate the behaviour of Firefox, you need to disable the document switcher and MRU behaviour.

Disable MRU functionality

Navigate to Settings > Preferences... > MISC..
- Where it says Document Switcher (Ctrl+TAB) uncheck the first check box Enable.
- Hit the Close button.

Create the Ctrl+PGUP/PGDN shortcuts

Navigate to Settings > Shortcut Mapper....
- Make sure you are on the Main menu tab.
- Scroll to the bottom and you should see in entries 192 Switch to previous document and 193 Switch to next document.
- By default these should be mapped to Ctrl+Shift+Tab and Ctrl+Tab respectively.
- Double click anywhere on the 192 line and change it to Ctrl+Page up.
- Double click anywhere on the 193 line and change it to Ctrl+Page down.
- Hit the Close button.

That's it!

Please note that you will no longer have access to the Ctrl+Tab/Shift+Tab MRU behaviour now. If, like me, you cannot live without this read on.

Another (better) option

Notepad++ defaults to using the back and forward buttons on a mouse to switch to the adjacent left and right tabs, so if you are a fan of AutoHotkey, you can use this little script:

#IfWinActive, ahk_class Notepad++
; Switch to the adjacent tab to the left
^PgUp::
    Send, {XButton1}
    Return
; Switch to the adjacent tab to the right
^PgDn::
    Send, {XButton2}
    Return

This won't interfere with other programs and enables to you have your cake and eat it! You can navigate left and right through adjacent the tabs using Ctrl+PgUp and Ctrl+PgDn and you can still switch to your last used tab using the built-in document switcher functionality using Ctrl+Tab and Ctrl+Shift+Tab - just like Firefox :)

Windows – How to prevent Ctrl+Shift from changing the text direction

I haven't found how to disable the shortcut withing Windows, but if you're open to using AutoHotKey, there's a workaround:

Use AutoHotKey to map Right Shift to be Left Shift

No more RTL by mistake, and my Ctrl+Shift+← works without problem. I don't yet know of any reason why I need RShift, so I'm happy with this so far.

AutoHotKey mapping syntax is simple on this one:

RShift::LShift

Credit: Inspired by @gogowitsch in a comment on https://superuser.com/a/490244/93731