Issue #50  (Keyboard Shortcuts to Navigate Sidebar & Editor)04/05/23

One of the best ways to speed up your workflow in VS Code is to learn certain keyboard shortcuts. Especially do you want to learn ones that replace tedious mouse actions.

One particular pair of keyboard shortcuts can drastically improve the speed at which you work when doing things in the editor then moving to the sidebar and back again.

If you haven't already memorized these keyboard shortcuts, here they are:

• CTRL/CMD-0 - Switch focus to the sidebar
• CTRL/CMD-1 - Switch focus to the editor

 
When you hit CTRL/CMD-0, focus will be put on whatever file or area of the sidebar you were last in. So if you were in the folder pane, it will focus the last file or folder you accessed before you started editing. If you happen to be in the Extensions pane, it will go back to there.

Usefully, when you hit CTRL/CMD-1 to go back to the editor, it will put focus back wherever your cursor left off.
 
So if you happen to be editing a specific part of the document, it's nice to just go back to wherever you were previously. Of course, if you've already scrolled to another part of the document but left your cursor elsewhere, focus will still take you to the last place your cursor was, not the last place you scrolled to.

And of course, if you prefer, you can customize these by editing them in your keyboard shortcuts.
 
For reference, they're called "Focus Into Primary Side Bar" and "Focus First Editor Group" — or you can find them by typing the keyboard shortcuts themselves.

Now on to this week's hand-picked links!

 

VS Code Tools

ScribeAI — Another ChatGPT-based VS Code extension that provides code assistance via an AI chatbot right inside your editor.

Aspect — A VS Code extension for Aspect, a tool that allows you to create and edit React components visually.

Path Intellisense — A popular VS Code extension that adds autocomplete for file names.

Learn to Code with React (Course Bundle) — 9 courses comprising 153 hours of material to level up your skills in React, Redux, React Testing Library, TypeScript, React Hooks, React Native, and more.  Sponsor 

Infracost — A VS Code extension that shows you cost estimates for Terraform right in your editor, to help prevent costly infrastructure changes before they get into production.

VS Code Articles

VS Code 1.77 (March 2023 Updates) — The latest updates to VS Code include accessibility improvements, copy GitHub deep links, JS/TS switch statement completions, expanded GitHub Copilot integration, and more.

Announcing the GitHub Actions extension for VS Code — Over on the GitHub blog, some news announcing the public beta of the official GitHub Actions extension for VS Code, which allows you to author and edit workflows and manage workflow runs without leaving your IDE.

Bytes: Your Favourite JavaScript Newsletter — I subscribe to a lot of newsletters, but this is definitely one I look forward to. Entertaining with lots of cool and useful JavaScript coding tidbits, news, and tools.  Sponsor 

Create a Pull Request from Visual Studio Code on GitHub — First of a multi-article series (with accompanying videos), the others covering code reviews on pull requests, and managing GitHub issues from VS Code.
 

Best of the Rest

Cursor — A native app for Windows, Mac, and Linux to write, edit, and chat about your code with a powerful AI.

IntelliJ IDEA 2023.1 Is Out! — Includes UI improvements, performance enhancements, a streamlined commit process, and more.

Vim After 15 Years — This is from 2017 by Ian Langworth, who has done this type of post 3 times now. If you're a Vim user looking for some improvements and optimizations, you might find these posts useful.

Suggestions?

If you have any link suggestions, including a tool, article, or other resources related to VS Code or another IDE, send it via DM on X: @LouisLazaris or just hit reply on this email.

That's it for this issue.

Happy VS Coding!
Louis
VSCode.Email
@LouisLazaris