Window Layout Manager
Save and restore named, per-solution working-context snapshots — and switch between them with a double-click.
Visual Studio keeps exactly one live working context per solution: which documents are open, how they're arranged, where the caret and scroll sit, and your breakpoints. It can't hold several named contexts and flip between them. This fills that gap — especially for debugging stages you set up repeatedly (e.g. five conditional breakpoints across three files, each scrolled to the right spot).
What a snapshot captures
- Open documents + arrangement — tab groups and which document is active.
- Per-document view state — scroll position, caret, selection, and whether the editor was split.
- Breakpoints — location, condition + type, hit count + type, enabled state, and label.
Double-click a saved layout → the files reopen arranged, each view jumps to its position, and the breakpoints reappear.
Using it
- View ▸ Other Windows ▸ Window Layouts opens the tool window.
- Type a name and press Enter to capture the current state. Saving under an existing name asks, then replaces that layout — so re-saving after adding a breakpoint just works.
- Double-click a layout (or select it and press Enter) to restore it.
- Right-click a layout for Apply, Rename, and Delete.
- No keyboard shortcuts ship by default, but the commands are rebindable: in Tools ▸ Options ▸ Environment ▸ Keyboard, search for
WindowLayouts and assign whatever keys you like. The bindings only fire while the tool window has focus.
- Apply is always manual — nothing is auto-applied when a solution opens. Unsaved changes prompt before documents close, and applying is blocked while debugging.
Where layouts live
<solution dir>\.vs\WindowLayoutManager\<solution name>\layouts.json — per-solution, git-ignored, never touches your repo. Repos with several .sln/.slnf files in one folder get a separate layout list per solution.
Scope and limitations
- Tool-window docking is not captured. There's no supported public API for arbitrary named tool-window docking layouts, so this targets the document area — where the real value is. Use VS's built-in Save Window Layout for chrome.
- Snapshots are point-in-time. Edit a file afterward and a restored caret/breakpoint lands on the shifted line; positions are clamped, missing files are skipped.
- Editor splits restore as 50/50. The snapshot records that a document was split and restores scroll/caret, but the splitter proportion resets.
- Paths are absolute. Moving the repo (or using a git worktree) doesn't break anything, but old layouts restore nothing useful at the new path.
- Layouts are local to your machine — not shared, not committed (no export in v1).
Requirements
Visual Studio 2026 (version 18), any edition.
Source and issues: https://github.com/lxman/WindowLayoutManager
