From the performence point of view I would like to mention that this
cycling action is usually used for searching in last edited files (<=
5, 10 at most). If user wants to edit a file which has not been edited
recently she/he usually uses list of opened files or uses
Projects/Files tab to edit the file because she/he isn't sure if the
file is really opened.

Sorry, seems to be bad idea for following reasons:

- Ctrl+Tab dialog is known principle in today's UI, while your
suggestion I never saw anywhere. "Follow common things" is the first
principle of good UI.
- your suggestion is actually workaround for the known bug of Ctrl+tab
dialog (not clear what window we are going to select), so this should
be solved, not workarounded
- you mentioned performance issues yourself: we'll *never* achieve
enough speed to select various windows so that it's pleasant to use
with Ctrl+Tab. UI should reflect that performance fact. Arguments you
wrote means just that "sometimes performance will not be terrible, but
only bad".
- in a result Ctrl+Tab would nearly duplicate Alt+left, Alt+right.

So again sorry, but this one is invalid. Jano, is you don't agree, OK,
feel free to reopen.

- my suggestion works in this way in MS Visual Studio (6.0 & 2003.NET)
- I have used it there and I can say it's much better than the dialog.
- my suggestion isn't workaround, it really improves coding
productivity -- when you see the documents while switching, you don't
need remember file names, you can navigate only by documents
visualization (that's what I'm still missing)
- performance: it will work with same performance as Alt+left/right.
It should be good enough then. By my performance note I wanted to
avoid arguments like "the dialog has better performance" -- it's true
that dialog has better performance, but the advantages of increased
coding productivity in this solution is more important.
- Ctrl-Tab doesn't duplicate Alt+left/right. The priciple of "last
used document" is crucial. Tell me, why Alt+left/right don't show a
dialog? Because user wants to see the file immediately - IMO same as
Ctrl-Tab: whenever I switch a document, I want to see it immediately.

I agree that this enhancement makes more sence with combination of
issue 48448 (cycling only through documents) and combination of using
Ctrl-Tab instead of Ctrl-~ (which has been already fixed). Without
implementation of 48448 it could probably confuse the users and become
more controversial - I didn't think about it a lot.
Anyway I feel this issue together with 48448 to be problem #1 of
NetBeans' editor since the time I met NetBeans for the first time a
year ago.

- dialog is used on many places, including OSs themvelves, ont only in
one product, Visual Studio. So still valid what I wrote.
- performance will not be good as for repeating shortcut should be.
Period.
- Alt+arrows don't show the dialog, because moving in one direction
(supported by the shortcut) is natural to watch on documents directly.
Jumping in editor area back and forth, including wild scrolling, form
component inspector etc. opening, is not natural at all for eyes of
user, and actually such threater will irritate majority of them.
- yes I agree that navigation by document visualizations is better
then by name. This one real advantage is IMO overweighted by the
arguments that it will be slow, confusing and sometimes visually
distracting.

OK, I won't close again, to make you feel better. If you think it's
better to have it opened...

We improved the dialog for 4.1, but we still show the dialog. We don't plan to change that. 

Navigation without showing the dialog can be achieved using the goto source and back/
forward navigation in the editor.