What's new in Project Manager 13.1

• Improved Tags support
• Improved auto-detected projects support
• Fully Open Source again
• Adds Profile support
• Highlights the current project in the Side Bar
• Published to Open VSX
• Adds Getting Started / Walkthrough
• Organize your projects with Tags
• Adds Virtual Workspaces support
• Adds Workspace Trust support

Support

Project Manager is an extension created for Visual Studio Code. If you find it useful, please consider supporting it.

Project Manager

It helps you to easily access your projects, no matter where they are located. Don't miss those important projects anymore.

You can define your own Projects (also called Favorites), or choose for auto-detect Git, Mercurial or SVN repositories, VSCode folders, or any other folder.

Here are some of the features that Project Manager provides:

• Save any folder or workspace as a Project
• Auto-detect Git, Mercurial or SVN repositories
• Organize your projects using Tags
• Open projects in the same or new window
• Identify deleted/renamed projects
• A Status Bar which identifies the current project
• A dedicated Side Bar

Features

Available Commands

• Project Manager: Save Project Save the current folder/workspace as a new project
• Project Manager: Edit Project Edit your projects manually (projects.json)
• Project Manager: List Projects to Open List all saved/detected projects and pick one
• Project Manager: List Projects to Open in New Window List all saved/detected projects and pick one to be opened in New Window
• Project Manager: Filter Projects by Tag Filter the Favorite projects by selected tags

Manage your projects

Save Project

You can save the current folder/workspace as a Project at any time. You just need to type its name.

It suggests a name to you automatically :)

Edit Projects

For easier customization of your project list, you can edit the projects.json file, directly inside Code. Just execute Project Manager: Edit Projects and the projects.json file is opened. Simple as this:

[
    {
        "name": "Pascal MI",
        "rootPath": "c:\\PascalProjects\\pascal-menu-insight",
        "tags": [],
        "enabled": true,
        "profile": "Delphi"
    },
    {
        "name": "Bookmarks",
        "rootPath": "$home\\Documents\\GitHub\\vscode-bookmarks",
        "tags": [
            "Personal",
            "VS Code"
        ],
        "enabled": true,
        "profile": "VSCode"
    },
    {
        "name": "Numbered Bookmarks",
        "rootPath": "~\\Documents\\GitHub\\vscode-numbered-bookmarks",
        "tags": [
            "Personal",
            "VS Code"
        ],
        "enabled": false,
        "profile": "VSCode"
    }
]

You can use ~ or $home while defining any path. It will be replaced by your HOME folder.

Be sure that the JSON file is well-formed. Otherwise, Project Manager will not be able to open it, and an error message like this should appear. In this case, you should use the Open File button to fix it.

Access

List Projects to Open

Shows your projects and select one to open.

List Projects to Open in New Window

Just like List Projects but always opening in New Window.

Keyboard Focused Users

If you are a keyboard focused user and uses Vim like keyboard navigation, you can navigate thru the project list with your own keybindings.

Just use the when clause "inProjectManagerList", like:

    {
        "key": "cmd+j",
        "command": "workbench.action.quickOpenSelectNext",
        "when": "inProjectManagerList && isMac"
    },
    {
        "key": "cmd+shift+j",
        "command": "workbench.action.quickOpenSelectPrevious",
        "when": "inProjectManagerList && isMac"
    },
    {
        "key": "ctrl+j",
        "command": "workbench.action.quickOpenSelectNext",
        "when": "inProjectManagerList && (isWindows || isLinux)"
    },
    {
        "key": "ctrl+shift+j",
        "command": "workbench.action.quickOpenSelectPrevious",
        "when": "inProjectManagerList && (isWindows || isLinux)"
    }

Working with Remotes

The extension support Remote Development scenarios, and you may choose how to use it, depending on your needs

I access Remotes, but most of my work is Local

This is the regular scenario, and that's why you don't need to do anything special for the extension to work. It works out of the box.

When installed locally, you can save any Container, SSH, WSL or Codespaces projects as Favorites. Each one will have its own icon to be properly identified, and when you select them, VS Code will open the remote automatically.

It just works

But what if I do most of my work on Remotes

If you normally connect to remotes (like SSH/WSL) and would like to save Favorite projects on that remote, or to be able to auto-detect repos located on that remote, you must activate/install the extension to work on remotes.

You just have to add the lines below on your User Settings.

    "remote.extensionKind": {
        "alefragnani.project-manager": [
            "workspace"
        ]
    },

More details on VS Code documentation

Available Settings

You can choose how your projects are sorted

• Saved: The order that you saved the projects
• Name: The name that you typed for the project
• Path: The full path of the project
• Recent: The recently used projects

    "projectManager.sortList": "Name"

• Choose if the project list must be grouped by its kind (Favorites, Git, Mercurial, SVN and VS Code).

    "projectManager.groupList": true

• Should the current project be removed from the list? (false by default)

    "projectManager.removeCurrentProjectFromList": true

• Should identify invalid paths on project list? (true by default)

    "projectManager.checkInvalidPathsBeforeListing": false

• Should support symlinks on baseFolders? (false by default)

    "projectManager.supportSymlinksOnBaseFolders": true

• Should show the parent folder info when projects with same name are detected? (false by default)

    "projectManager.showParentFolderInfoOnDuplicates": true

• Filter Projects Through Full Path (false by default)

    "projectManager.filterOnFullPath": true

• Custom projects file (projects.json) location

If you intend to share projects between Stable and Insider installations, or if you store your settings in different locations (cloud services), you can indicate an alternative location (folder path) for the projects.json file.

    "projectManager.projectsLocation": "C\\Users\\myUser\\AppData\\Roaming\\Code\\User"

You can use ~ or $home while defining the folder path. It will be replaced by your HOME folder.

• Automatic Detection of Projects (Git , Mercurial , SVN and VSCode )

    "projectManager.git.baseFolders": [
        "c:\\Projects\\code",
        "d:\\MoreProjects\\code-*",
        "$home\\personal-coding"
    ]

Indicates folders or glob patterns to search for projects

    "projectManager.git.ignoredFolders": [
        "node_modules", 
        "out", 
        "typings", 
        "test"
        "fork*"
    ],

Indicates folders or glob patterns to be ignored when searching for projects

    "projectManager.git.maxDepthRecursion": 4

Define how deeps it should search for projects

• Exclude the base folders themselves from the auto-detected projects list (false by default)

    "projectManager.any.excludeBaseFoldersFromResults": true

When enabled, the Any base folders configured in projectManager.any.baseFolders are not returned as projects themselves, only their matching subfolders are.

• Should ignore projects found inside other projects? (false by default)

    "projectManager.ignoreProjectsWithinProjects": true

• Cache automatically detected projects (true by default)

    "projectManager.cacheProjectsBetweenSessions": false

• Display the Project Name in Status Bar (true by default)

    "projectManager.showProjectNameInStatusBar": true

• Open projects in New Window when clicking in status bar (false by default)

    "projectManager.openInNewWindowWhenClickingInStatusBar": true

• Indicates if the New Window command should open the project in current window, when empty (always by default)

• always: Whenever you call the Open in New Window command, it will open in the current window, if empty

• onlyUsingCommandPalette: Only open in the current window if you use the Command Palette
• onlyUsingSideBar: Only open in the current window if you use the Side Bar
• never: Works as today. The Open in New Window command will always open in New Window

    "projectManager.openInCurrentWindowIfEmpty": "always"

• Indicates the list of tags you can use to organize your projects (Personal and Work by default)

    "projectManager.tags": [
        "Personal", 
        "Work",
        "VS Code",
        "Learning"
    ]

• Controls how tag groups in the Favorites view are expanded or collapsed, and whether their state is remembered (startExpanded by default)

• alwaysExpanded: Tag groups are always expanded

• alwaysCollapsed: Tag groups are always collapsed
• startExpanded: Tag groups start expanded and remember your last expand/collapse state
• startCollapsed: Tag groups start collapsed and remember your last expand/collapse state

    "projectManager.tags.collapseItems": "startExpanded"

Available Colors

• Choose the foreground color to highlight the current project in the Side Bar

    "workbench.colorCustomizations": {
      "projectManager.sideBar.currentProjectHighlightForeground": "#e13015"  
    }

Side Bar

The Project Manager extension has its own Side Bar, with a variety of commands to improve your productivity.

Project Tags - View and Filter

Starting in v12.3, you can now organize your Projects with Tags.

You can define your custom tags (via projectManager.tags setting), define multiple tags for each project, and filter the projects baded on their tags.

Installation and Configuration

You should follow the official documentation to:

• Install the extension
• Modify its settings

License

GPL-3.0 © Alessandro Fragnani