Switch Window

[chrmarti]

• Should have a keyboard shortcut (e.g., Ctrl + Shift + R).
• Use the same labels as Open Recent (Ctrl + R) to not be confusing.
• Show entries in MRU order.
• Support cycling through by holding modifiers while pressing the main key repeatedly.

[bpasero]

I think our current "Open Recent" is coming very close to this?

[chrmarti]

You might be right, I'll try working with that for a bit.

[bpasero]

/cc @dbaeumer

[dbaeumer]

@bpasero Thanks.

As discussed would be cool to cycle through them as we can cycle with Ctrl+P through files.

[bpasero]

@chrmarti @dbaeumer now I just realized that we do have a picker for windows:

This is a good start, can you let me know how it works for you?

Meanwhile I am pushing the following changes to this picker:

• make it discoverable from the picker help by using a quick open prefix "window "
• allow to use the picker with quick navigate keys (so that you can bind a keybinding to navigate through windows and pick it when releasing that key)
• show icons

I am not 100% convinced this list should be MRU, rather I think it should be stable and you should always start from the top to find your window. But I am open to change this if we think it does not work.

[chrmarti]

Quick navigation works except for rare cases where it immediately navigates before I release the modifiers. (Using Ctrl+Shift+R for next, Ctrl+R for previous.)

It would be great if the labels would show the folder first and then its path, similar to Open Recent. The current list is hard to read.

[dbaeumer]

What I like about Ctrl+R is that I don't have to think about whether the windows is open or not. With switch window I do :-). I am already a heavy user of Ctrl+R now.

[jens1o]

Just tried it out.

LOVE IT. ❤️
I don't need something else, it's just great.

[chrmarti]

What I miss with Open Recent (Ctrl+R) is the quick navigation (repeated Ctrl+R), maybe that can be added?

Having a list of only the open windows/folders like with Switch Window can be helpful because it represents my "working set".

I'm using Ctrl+R and Cmd+ quite often, but find both have their shortcomings, so I tried using Switch Window. (Cmd+ is Mac's shortcut to switch between windows of the same application.)

[bpasero]

@chrmarti there is a bug with quick navigation that should be fixed in my new implementation, can you give it a try via "running out of sources"?

As for the labels, I chose to pick the exact same label that the window actually has and since the window title is configurable (via settings), maybe you can get it to a state where the label works for you? For example:

"window.title": "${rootName}${separator}${activeEditorShort}"

Produces:

@jens1o cool

@chrmarti @dbaeumer yes, we can add quick navigation to Ctrl+R, I can probably do that by turning it into a real picker, similar to what the window switcher is now. It seems to me that once we have that you would no longer use Switch Window. Is something else missing for the recent picker? Would you want to know which of the recent things is opened in another window?

[dbaeumer]

Could only be the once sorted to the top. Or. Since it is LRU. I am fine without that info.

[bpasero]

@dbaeumer it is worth mentioning that the "open recent" MRU sorting order is not influenced by you switching windows via Alt+Tab on Windows, it is only influenced by actually picking an entry from the list. As long as you stick to that, you are probably fine.

[chrmarti]

Open Recent:

Having quick navigation and an indicator for which ones are already open would be great.

While I'm not entirely sure about the indicator, I think it might help navigate in the "working set". It would also help in knowing when to press Cmd (or Ctrl) to open the folder in a new window. Not sure what a good indicator would be, maybe the background color plus something?

Switch Window:

"window.title": "${rootName}${separator}${rootPath}" works well for me with windows on folders (the important case for me), windows without folders might benefit from an alternative label.

The issue with quick nav in Switch Window shows when running the latest from master.

I agree we might not need Switch Window if Open Recent can cover it.

[bpasero]

@chrmarti what is your keybinding config for this when running out of master and what is your OS and what are your steps so that quick nav fails?

[dbaeumer]

@bpasero the only thing I could think of having two groups like Ctrl+P has. One open and one recently open.

[chrmarti]

@bpasero This is on Mac. Steps are:

• Hit Ctrl+Shift+R twice without releasing Ctrl+Shift with releasing R between and at the end.
• You'd expect the drop-down to stay, but it sometimes closes and switches the window.

This doesn't always happen and I can currently not reproduce. (If that sounds like the problem you fixed, maybe I was running from an old build state, although I thought I had updated that.)

[
	{
		"key": "ctrl+shift+r",
		"command": "workbench.action.switchWindow"
	},
	{
		"key": "ctrl+shift+r",
		"command": "workbench.action.quickOpenNavigateNext",
		"when": "inQuickOpen"
	},
	{
		"key": "ctrl+r",
		"command": "workbench.action.quickOpenNavigatePrevious",
		"when": "inQuickOpen"
	}
]

[bpasero]

@chrmarti I can also not reproduce. What I noticed is that there is an issue with switching windows (= giving focus on it) during the keyup-phase so I added a short timeout here to unwind from the callback.

If you can ever reproduce again please see if tweaking that timeout helps.

[bpasero]

I have pushed additional changes:

• you can now bind to the new workbench.action.quickOpenRecent command to quick pick from recent
• you can now bind to the new workbench.action.quickSwitchWindow command to quick pick from windows

Quick Switch Recent

{
	"key": "ctrl+r",
	"command": "workbench.action.quickOpenRecent"
},
{
	"key": "ctrl+r",
	"command": "workbench.action.quickOpenNavigateNext",
	"when": "inQuickOpen"
}

Quick Switch Window

{
	"key": "ctrl+r",
	"command": "workbench.action.quickSwitchWindow"
},
{
	"key": "ctrl+r",
	"command": "workbench.action.quickOpenNavigateNext",
	"when": "inQuickOpen"
}

[bpasero]

See #25145 (comment) for verification.