I'm throwing caution to the wind and I'm going to release (publicly via this Forum) the alpha version of RD Tabs 2.1 later this week. I have a huge projects starting next week at work so I will be unable to commit much time to RD Tabs (waaaay too tired) until the completion of that project (probably not until around Jan 1, 2008).

What is completed thus far addresses several requests and issues. The BIGGEST new feature is the last minute inclusion of floating tab panels. You can now have as many windows as you want, each individually hosting as many tab panes as you want. This will likely be pretty buggy, but I will leave it to you good bleeding edge testers to find the bugs. 🙂 As reports flow in, I'll take care of them when I pick up full steam near the end of the year (or beginning of 2008).

The first alpha version (2.1.0) will NOT be feature complete. This is subject to change, but expect the following new features:

- Floating tab panels (above)
- Non-modal Remote Computer Information
- Lighter weight RDP Control (with the biggest amount of fat loss coming from the Status Bar)

The following features will be added as 2.1 reaches official feature complete "beta" stage:

- More command line support
- "Docked" Connection Manager
- Multiple default Connection Profiles

See the roadmap  sticky article for more information.

Since this is all alpha, the RD Tabs Update will NOT notify you of the alpha version release. Keep an eye on this article for it's release.

As promised, the alpha version of RD Tabs! Remember this is ALPHA so it's probably much buggier than 2.0.12!

This will sadly be my last update for a couple months; However, I will probably have time to address bugs (but probably not new features) in this alpha build. In the new year, 2.1 should become finished fairly quickly, with 2.2 and 2.3 to follow!

32-bit: http://www.avianwaves.co...-DO_NOT_REDISTRIBUTE.msi 
64-bit: http://www.avianwaves.co...-DO_NOT_REDISTRIBUTE.msi 

Here's the 2.1.0 changelog...

- Improved custom "tab list" (and all future "lightweight") control redraw performance by queueing immediately successive redraw events so that they happen in one call every 10ms (instead of immediately). This has reduced redraw CPU usage by about 70% without sacrifising user experience.
- The 64-bit specific release of RD Tabs is now well tested and will parallel the release schedule for the 32-bit version (instead of being stuck in perpetual beta like during 2.0.x).
- RD Tabs 64 will now say "RD Tabs 64" in the title bar so you can be sure you are not running the 32-bit RD Tabs in Windows-On-Windows (WOW).
- The "About" dialog also contains build information (x86 or x64) for debugging purposes.
- RD Tabs Update now differentiates between the 32-bit and 64-bit platforms, providing the download link for whatever platform invoked it.
- Set a breadcrumb for device redirection since enumerating existing devices was causing some error reports to be generated. The next time this happens, I'll have a better picture of what is crashing.
- Fixed a resource leak in the way favorites were being cleaned up when the menus were repopulated. It's really more of a drip or trickle than a leak and the .Net Framework probably disposes of it during garbage collection anyway, but I'm trying to run a tight ship here, so it's fixed! :-)
- Big new feature: Floating Tab Panels! Works just like the main window, only you can now have unlimited alternate RD Tabs windows open and split them into as many tab panes as you want! Very useful for multiple monitor configurations.
- Smaller footprint: The RD Tabs' statusbar has been completely re-written from the ground up. Before it was the usual .Net statusstrip, but now it is custom written and very light "windowless" control. It uses only a single window handle for all pieces within it and offers superior responsiveness and lower memory usage than the Microsoft solution (which, to be fair, does a lot more than the custom one, but RD Tabs doesn't need those features).
- Smaller footprint: I was able to consolidate several timer controls in the RDPControl into one control. Less controls equals less resource footprint and that makes everybody happy!
- Fixed a bug where in the Batch Favorites Editor, if you clicked back and forth between the field checkboxes and the connection property textboxes, the focus would jump out of the text box to the tab control in the connection properties. You'd have to click twice on the textbox for it to receive focus.
- Fixed a bug where if you typed in a new computer name in the Batch Favorites Editor, the display name field, although disabled, would copy what was in the computer field. This is mainly just a visual bug that could be confusing. Functionally, display names (which are used to uniquely identify favorites) were not changed!
- New option: You can now enable a setting in Options (under Tabs) that will automatically close a tab when the remote desktop disconnects. Keep in mind that "automatic reconnect" will override this setting when there are network problems that cause a disconnection.
- Fixed a bug where the "capture Region of Remote Desktop" feature would allow you to select an area outside of the remote desktop's desktop. This would give you the undesirable result of nothingness being capture into the clipboard. Thankfully, rather than crashing, the nothingness took on the color of dark blue. Anyway, now it limits the capturable area to the remote desktop's desktop.
- New feature: The "Remote Computer Information" dialog now executes on a separate thread, has its own taskbar entry, can be minimized, and is otherwise non-modal with respect to the rest of RD Tabs. So now you can monitor server upness, log remote users off, etc., all while clicking around in tabs in the main app (or any new tab panel).
- Fixed a bug where if you were connecting to a tab in one pane, and were working in another, when the connecting tab actually connected, keyboard focus would get lost. This was a very complicated one that required a lot of rewiring for the ways I was handling remote desktop keyboard focus. The good news is my new method is way cleaner and seems to work great with multiple tab panels with multiple tab panes with multiple tabs. The bad news is that since it's a lot of rewiring, it could be buggy.
- Fixed a bug where if you were typing in a tab's connection properties computer combobox and another tab connected, the combobox of the connection properties of the tab you were typing in would clear. This was due to the MRU list of the combobox being updated in the middle of your typing. The MRU list now only updates when you first enter the combobox, so although it may not be up-to-date until you click out of it and back into it, it will no longer clear out while you were typing (which was very annoying).