Auto hide panel

[ghost]

Similar to behavior in Visual Studio, is there a way we could get the terminal to show/hide automatically? Leaving some sort of tab at the bottom of the screen?

It opens when:

1. User mouses over the tab
2. Something is written to the terminal

It hides when:

1. User clicks outside of the open terminal window.
2. The terminal has not been written to within a set period of ~10 seconds.

Ex: I'm working on an Angular 2 application using the angular-cli build tool. When I'm writing code or clicking through the UI I don't particularly care about what's displaying in the terminal. But as soon as I save my changes and the build process starts, I DO want to quickly see what the current state of the build is. So after saving a file, when the CLI tool starts writing to the terminal, it would pop-up from the bottom, and as long as my mouse isn't hovering over it, it will hide again after several seconds of inactivity.

[Tyriar]

Related: #3742

[joelpresence]

Hi @Tyriar - I saw that you closed several duplicate issues related to this. Is there an ETA for adding this functionality?

Thanks.

[Tyriar]

No ETA, #2806 will probably get looked at before this one.

[alekseyt]

+1

It would be also nice to have an option to show terminal only when underlying shell exited with code other than 0 (zero) OR something was printed to stderr. E.g. i'm starting CMake build in shell, but i don't want to see terminal until it requires my attention: for example, a compilation error occurred, warning was printed (normally to stderr) or shell failed to execute build in some other way.

[iammruni]

+1

[lempax]

I would also want this feature. +1

[radutomy]

+1

[dimaaleks]

+1

[Nyalothas]

+1 I was just working with Angular and...well.. this happened.

[KeyC0de]

+1

[vinod85]

+1

[GroomedGorilla]

+1 - Is this still pending since 2016 or am I missing a fix?

[Odame]

+1

[SilverPreece]

Considering writing a plugin for this. My biggest problem with the VSC interface in general is the lack of feedback on actions. Make a Git pull, start a Vagrant box, etc, and if you don't have the Terminal already open and ready (and manually switch to the new Terminal tab every tool run generates), you get absolutely zero feedback. It's quite frustrating to have to go looking for the outcome of actions taken.

[Trass3r]

@GregJPreece any luck?

[dreamsComeTrue]

+1 Please add this feature :)

[dberthia]

+1

[GroomedGorilla]

FYI while waiting for this add-on, the shortcut ctrl + ` should open/close the terminal

[EwanDubashinski]

+1

[uniapi]

close does not suit when you've opened VSC from a parent directory as every time you should:
$ cd target
+1

[kieranbenton]

https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=venryx.vscode-vtools does a pretty good job working around the lack of this in the core product IMO. Has the occasional bug, but works well enough on a day-to-day basis.

[robots4life]

https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=venryx.vscode-vtools does a pretty good job working around the lack of this in the core product IMO. Has the occasional bug, but works well enough on a day-to-day basis.

Works well. However, once the bottom bar/terminal is hidden, is there a shortcut to open that same terminal again without having to do to Terminal -> New Terminal?
I have a terminal open, click outside of it, it is hidden, now once I want to go back into that same terminal, what do I do without having to open a new terminal session?
Thank you.

[robots4life]

https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=venryx.vscode-vtools does a pretty good job working around the lack of this in the core product IMO. Has the occasional bug, but works well enough on a day-to-day basis.

Works well. However, once the bottom bar/terminal is hidden, is there a shortcut to open that same terminal again without having to do to Terminal -> New Terminal?
I have a terminal open, click outside of it, it is hidden, now once I want to go back into that same terminal, what do I do without having to open a new terminal session?
Thank you.

ctrl + shift + ^ to open the same terminal again.

[rpgdev]

ctrl + shift + ^ to open the same terminal again.

You can just do ctrl+`

[robots4life]

ctrl + shift + ^ to open the same terminal again.

You can just do ctrl+`

Afaik not on Linux, there the combo is ctrl + shift + ^ per default VS Code settings. But yes, could surly adjust those with keybindings.

[rpgdev]

Afaik not on Linux, there the combo is ctrl + shift + ^ per default VS Code settings. But yes, could surly adjust those with keybindings.

You must be right. I'm on linux myself so I probably changed that hotkey. My bad.

[Splendorr]

vscode-vtools doesn't seem to solve this for me; if I run a build command which opens the terminal, executes a single command, and then stops, continuing to type in my existing code panel doesn't close the terminal. Since the terminal never had focus, it doesn't count as losing focus? I have to click inside the terminal, then click back into the code to make the panel disappear, which is almost worse than having to press ctrl+` twice to put focus into the terminal, then close it.

I want to run a build command either without showing the output, or showing and then hiding the panel afterward without having to press anything extra. I just don't need to see the build output most of the time for my purposes, and I have a small laptop screen where every inch of vertical space is important.

UPDATE: I re-read the docs and learned there's a task option to never show the terminal in the first place. This is what I wanted! Docs here. Add this inside the task.json:

"command": "your command here",
"presentation": {
  "reveal": "never"
}

[lebtron]

+1

[lucianotres]

I'm just wondering why this is still open. Should have a built in option or let the extensions do the show.
By the way, that's the amazing of the vscode. For who that like to auto hide the panes too, see this extension: Auto Hide

[lebtron]

I'm just wondering why this is still open. Should have a built in option or let the extensions do the show.
By the way, that's the amazing of the vscode. For who that like to auto hide the panes too, see this extension: Auto Hide

I just tried it. It does exactly what I want! Thank you!

[jonyeezs]

For keyboard shortcut users, here's my workaround.

Goal: to close all panels/sidebars and focus back on the editor on keystroke.

If you have a panel (terminal, console, linter, etc) or a sidebar (git, file explorer, etc) open or in focus, pressing the keybinding will focus your cursor back to the active editor tab and close all panels and sidebar.

Steps:

1. Install geddski's macros extension
2. Add to settings.json

"terminal.integrated.commandsToSkipShell": [
  "macros.switchToEditorHidePanes"
],
"macros": {
  "switchToEditorHidePanes": [
    "workbench.action.focusActiveEditorGroup",
    "workbench.action.closePanel",
    "workbench.action.closeSidebar"
  ]
}

3. Add to keybindings.json (I use esc key. Replace it what fits you best)

   {
     "key": "escape",
     "command": "macros.switchToEditorHidePanes",
     "when": "panelFocus || terminalFocus "
   },
   {
     "key": "escape",
     "command": "macros.switchToEditorHidePanes",
     "when": "editorIsOpen && sideBarVisible"
   },
   {
     "key": "escape",
     "command": "macros.switchToEditorHidePanes",
     "when": "activePanel"
   },

4. profit!

[leopucci]

This extension do this.
https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=sirmspencer.vscode-autohide
I don´t like it tottally because then you dont have a button to open again.
So I add together with this one to have the panel button to open it back
https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=jerrygoyal.shortcut-menu-bar

[ssbarnea]

@jonyeezs I love the use of "ESC" to do this but I think your solution is missing the second part: restoring the terminal when you press ESC inside the editor, so we can have the full round-trip. Have you one a solution for that?

[jonyeezs]

@jonyeezs I love the use of "ESC" to do this but I think your solution is missing the second part: restoring the terminal when you press ESC inside the editor, so we can have the full round-trip. Have you one a solution for that?

I just open terminal as per normal keyboard shortcut.

So no single shortcut to rule them all

[teddybear]

+1

[maxrzaw]

One of the problems with how auto hide is implemented in Visual Studio is that the terminal will not auto hide when my cursor is above it, even if I have started typing in the editor. Please do not add that annoying behavior to VSCode.

[Kemeros]

Would love something like this

[ColinStroud]

Please add this or the ability to set one of the following: Disable Autoshow, Disable Logging, Location="none" (or similar).

[natrist]

Yes, I would like a simple way to hide the 'Problems' panel (problems, errors, output, terminal tabs), because it takes too much monitor estate and it drives me crazy to have to hide it after almost every operation.

[hugows]

Still looking for this on the year of 2024 :)

[ecormier-alludo]

Just do what QtCreator does: hide the bottom window with the ESC key. The way they do it is perfect; they figured it out long ago.