[Feature] - Toggle Custom Editor (Improved markdown support)

[jasonwilliams]

This issue arises from the parent issue: #84520

Description

I would like to quickly toggle between 2 markdown states:

• Source Code editor (This is the state you currently get by default)
• Custom Editor (the preview editor you see when opening preview mode if the file is markdown)

Toggling between modes should take place in the same current window. This way you'll get a smooth create-read-modify experience. For references have a look at typora.io or notable.md where this is perfectly implemented.

Persistent State

When toggling between 2 states i would like the states to be persistent.
What i mean by this, is if I toggle a document to preview mode, when I go to open another document, I'm still in preview mode until I toggle back. This is the behaviour of many other markdown viewers and is pretty standard at this point, if it can keep state across sessions that would be even better.

Steps to reproduce:

Add this to your settings:

  "workbench.editorAssociations": [
    {
      "viewType": "vscode.markdown.preview.editor",
      "filenamePattern": "*.md"
    }
  ],

Then open a markdown file, you can toggle state by calling "Reopen Editor with..." then selecting one of the 2 options. Opening a new file resets this choice.

Requested changes

As per the discussion in #84520 we would like to see a keyboard-shortcut which can toggle between these 2 states, and keep persistence.

Implementation detail

#84520 (comment)

@sverg1 This should likely not be a markdown specific command but a generic for custom editors. Something like: toggle custom editor that would switch between VS Code's standard text editor and the custom one (i.e. the markdown preview)

Here's where the custom editor commands live:

vscode/src/vs/workbench/contrib/customEditor/browser/commands.ts

Line 60 in 27a33ee

const REOPEN_WITH_COMMAND_ID = 'reOpenWith';

The ICustomEditorService and IEditorService should have the functionality you need to implement this:

• Getting the currently active editor.
• Switching it to the custom editor or to the default text editor.

Since this change would be going into core VS Code, it should not hardcode anything markdown specific

[vscodebot]

(Experimental duplicate detection)
Thanks for submitting this issue. Please also check if it is already covered by an existing one, like:

• Help test and implement the markdown custom editor preview (#84520)

[olajohn-ajiboye]

@jasonwilliams @mjbvz . I would like to tackle this if it's not been worked on yet.

[jasonwilliams]

@olajohn-ajiboye no one is working on this so feel free!

[olajohn-ajiboye]

Thanks @jasonwilliams , I will start working on this. Am I able to ask for pointers from you if I need additional clarifications or who else can help?

[jasonwilliams]

@olajohn-ajiboye sure you can ask here.

@mjbvz should hopefully be able to guide you too as he made the parent issue and created the custom editor

[mjbvz]

The existing Toggle editor type command switches the type of the current editor so this feature request it to persist the choice too, correct? Maybe a newToggle default editor type command?

To start, look at the Toggle editor type command:

vscode/src/vs/workbench/browser/parts/editor/editorActions.ts

Line 1934 in 64a1496

const activeEditorPane = this.editorService.activeEditorPane;

For the new command, you'll also want to save off the new setting. Here's an example of some code that does that:

vscode/src/vs/workbench/services/editor/common/editorOpenWith.ts

Line 140 in 6c4a00c

if (pick && id) {

[olajohn-ajiboye]

Thanks for the heads-up @mjbvz , I will have another look at this.

[olajohn-ajiboye]

Hey @jasonwilliams @mjbvz , I am not able to reproduce the "Reopen Editor with..." option. I was able to see this option before, but it seems gone. Could this be due to an update?

[jasonwilliams]

@olajohn-ajiboye what version of VSCode are you using? Are you using insiders or stable?

[olajohn-ajiboye]

@jasonwilliams it's Version: 1.52.1. I am not sure if it's stable or insider.

[jasonwilliams]

@mjbvz you able to do something about that? ^

[jasonwilliams]

@olajohn-ajiboye maybe it’s only on insiders

[jasonwilliams]

Can we reopen this? It’s being looked at

[jasonwilliams]

@mjbvz what's the purpose of Toggle editor type again? Can that not be retrofitted with the purpose of changing from source-code to preview on markdowns (or cycling through custom editors) ?

[mjbvz]

Toggle editor type toggles the type of the active editor. It's useful for quickly switching between a hex editor and a text editor for example

[jasonwilliams]

@mjbvz is this issue still valid?

[mjbvz]

Thanks @jasonwilliams. Yes I'll close this since I think this was addressed. Please open new issues if some part of this still isn't working as expected