I’ve implemented a small extension for edit mode. In All Properties view you can set an icon for tabs.

Icons in Edit Mode Tabs

To add an icon you should add an InitializableModule and use TabIconResolver. TabIconResolver has SetIcon method used to setting the tab icon.

You can also display an icon without a title. For example for Settings tab we will have only the “cog” icon.

Tab with icon and no label

To hide the title use TabIconResolver and call SetTitleVisible method.

Source code is available on Github