Vim style tabs

[smbkr]

Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe.
VS Code's tab/split paradigm works differently to Vim. This can be frustrating if you're used to/prefer the way Vim works in this regard.

Describe the solution you'd like
A tab in Vim terms is more like a window (in VS Code terms), that can contain any number of arbitrary splits (Vim windows). ie. Tab 1 might contain a single window/split with one file open. Tab 2 might contain 3 windows/splits arranged in a certain way, tab 3 might contain 2 splits arranged differently.

Describe alternatives you've considered
N/A. It doesn't appear to me that it's possible to configure VSCode Vim like this currently.

I don't even know how possible this is with the VSCode extension API.

[jpoon]

Dupe of #2696

[bpierce1]

How is this a dupe of #2696? #2696 only relates to splitting a single window (which in vim would be splitting a single tab).

What @smbkr requested (and I would also request), is essentially the ability to have multiple splits within a single vscode tab/editor.

I'm also not sure if this is possible with vscode API

[artempyanykh]

Doesn't sound like a duplicate to me either. Actually, being able to have named "Open Editors + Groups" and quickly switching between them would be absolutely amazing.

[elliotf]

To provide a use case for why I prefer the "splits inside of tabs" -- I am able to keep the implementation of a file next to its tests inside of a tab and can switch between tabs, always having the tests associated with the implementation next to each other. When doing frontend work, I also find it useful to have multiple splits for the same thing (code + template + tests) in the same tab.

Is there a way to get the "dupe" status reconsidered, @jpoon ?

[jpoon]

Sorry, I misunderstood the original request. Removing the dupe label. However, AFAIK, this is not possible with VSCode APIs nor do I feel like this would be in their roadmap as it feels orthogonal to their UI design. In any case, this is more of an upstream issue so feel free to open an issue on VSCode.

[elliotf]

Awesome, thank you @jpoon !

[smbkr]

microsoft/vscode#36700 Issue here on the VS Code repo asking for support for this kind of functionality

[achimnol]

VSCode 1.61 (yes, it's September 2021) release now has the "split editor in group" feature, and it would be good to have an VSCodeVim option to use it for :sp and :vs (along with Ctrl+W + hjkl / arrow keys) instead of making new editor groups.

[anthony-whale]

I think this can be duped against microsoft/vscode#143024