Provide commands to split the terminal

[Tyriar]

After multiple terminals are added, it would be useful to see multiple terminals at once. Open question: how does focus interact with tabs and splits?

[bpasero]

Are you proposing to be able to split the panel side by side like the editor?

[Tyriar]

@bpasero Atom's term3 has the capability apparently, the package doesn't seem to be working for me though. Would want to see if it's a reasonable experience first.

[bpasero]

@Tyriar oh I see so the terminal itself would split in the panel, we would not add splitting support to the panel?

[Tyriar]

@bpasero yes, this would be contained within the specific panel. Not to be confused with #7161

[Tyriar]

Another issue that's related to this: Add maximize panel command #7314

[bearguns]

Would be great to be able to split integrated terminal / task output in the bottom pane.

[Tyriar]

@bargeruns that would be this one #7161 😃

[rebornix]

Personally I prefer sticky tabbing instead of window splitting as the window size is always too small ... something like tmux window would be great :)

[Tyriar]

Going to close this off in favor of programs like tmux and screen which seem to work just fine within vscode

[Tyriar]

Reopening, I'm probably not going to learn tmux personally but would definitely find this useful. Also I don't think there is a solution on Windows.

[rkeithhill]

And I'm not sure tmux/screen would help those of us who use PowerShell in their terminal window.

[Tyriar]

@rkeithhill yeah that's one of the reasons I reopened, there's a similar discussion on this topic in #10546

[wclr]

@Tyriar
Right for windows it doesn't work, and VSCode could provider more appropriate and convenient solution for naming navigating spited terminals. I would even consider some more flexible UI for terminals, for example where you could change split (or all) terminals amount and their size.

[selfup]

So I set my shell to bash.exe and everything was working fine up until the newest update.

Now tmux can only cover half the width of the terminal instead of all of it 🤔

Opened a new issue since this a bug: #24630

[wclr]

@Tyriar Isn't it possible anyhow currently create a terminal in editor pane? (via API)?

[Tyriar]

@whitecolor track that in this issue #2806

[jens1o]

is that based on another terminal's defaults? Also is that to split left/right or focus left/right?

It's to split, focusing is done by the mouse cursor(perhaps Tab when screenreader mode).
I had set that, because I've got used to it, but I don't know anymore how I invented those mappings.

[Tyriar]

@jens1o ah ok, currently the thinking is to just have a split horizontal/vertical as opposed to split to left/right to simplify it a bit. Good to know though 😃

[jakeleboeuf]

Focusing right/left would be v nice.

[millergarym]

key bindings are one of the first things I change post vscode install.
Here are my two for terminalFocus navigation.

    {
        "key": "ctrl+tab",
        "command": "workbench.action.terminal.focusNext",
        "when": "terminalFocus"
    },
    {
        "key": "ctrl+shift+tab",
        "command": "workbench.action.terminal.focusPrevious",
        "when": "terminalFocus"
    },

[Tyriar]

Here's an update of things that have changed since my last comment:

• You can split more than once
• The panes are rotated automatically when you move the panel to the right and back
• You can split via the context menu
• There are commands/keybindings to resize the active pane
  • macOS: cmd+ctrl+arrow
  • Linux/Windows: ctrl+shift+arrow
• Double clicking the sashes (lines between the panes) will "reset" the pane sizes, making them all equal
• Panes are kept to be all equal size unless the user explicitly resizes them
• The focus pane commands now let you use up/down as well which is more natural when the panel is to the right

We also decided to restrict splitting to a single dimension for the time being to simplify the UX and implementation. We could always add splitting both vertically and horizontally at the same time later if needed (eg. if you can pull the terminal/panel out into a different window or #34442 in the future).

Most of this will be in Monday's build in a few days.

---

Things left to do:

• Explore using alt+click (mac) and ctrl+click (win/linux) on the + button to split Alt+click(mac)/ctrl+click(win/linux) on terminal + panel action should split active terminal #43877
• Figure out a keybinding that makes sense for splitting on Windows and Linux
• Optimize terminal resize
• Add documentation to website Document terminal splitting vscode-docs#1414

[selfup]

This is awesome news! Thanks @Tyriar 🙏

[Usamaliaquat123]

Thanks @Tyriar great implementation 🙏

[felixse]

I would propose selecting a different keybinding for Windows, since this would override the default keybindings of PSReadLine, which comes preinstalled since PowerShell 5.
Maybe alt + shift + arrow?

[Tyriar]

@felixse we generally stay away from alt for default keybindings, ctrl+shift+d has other issues though as it is used to toggle the debug viewlet.

[tvvignesh]

@Tyriar Great work. This may be far fledged. But can this be a future implementation: https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/688617/30918650-2a2db238-a36d-11e7-95ff-8bb25b6d43fe.gif

This was mentioned by @plmrry in #10546

Cheers for the great work you guys do.

[Tyriar]

@tvvignesh you would probably also be able to do that if these 2 issues got resolve #10546 #14909

[copdips]

@Tyriar
So many thx for this great job, although we have only the vertical split for the moment, it's already awesome for us.

BTW, I suggest to create a new repo which has only the terminal part (maybe we can also keep the extension part), and let anyone others to contribute to this magical powershell console.

[Tyriar]

@copdips I've heard that a lot this week 😄, tracked in #34442

[Tyriar]

I've pushed a change to the keybindings, cmd+d has been dropping in favor of ctrl/cmd+\ so that splitting the terminal uses the same keybinding as the editor:

Primary: ctrl+\ (mac: cmd+)
Secondary: ctrl+shift+5

[AshCoolman]

Am using this now. I will never go back.

[willisplummer]

This is awesome! What's the keybinding for switching keyboard focus between split windows?

[Tyriar]

@willisplummer alt+arrow or cmd+alt+arrow

[brennongs]

@Tyriar I haven't been able to find quick keybind or command for closing the currently focused terminal panel. Is that possible/in the works?

[plmrry]

@brennongs I was looking for the same thing. Turns out you can add a key binding for workbench.action.terminal.kill and it will close the currently focused pane:

{
    "key": "cmd+w",
    "command": "workbench.action.terminal.kill",
    "when": "terminalFocus"
}

(in keybindings.json)

[wclr]

@Tyriar what about splitting terminal horizontally?

[Tyriar]

@brennongs there is no default keybinding for this.

@whitecolor you can only do that if the panel is vertical currently. See #7504 (comment)

[wclr]

@Tyriar ok

I didn't notice that it can be veritical. Maybe if it would be possible to have multiple terminal panes as editor panes and possible to split editor panes vertically and horizontally (like in VIM). Then there would be no need for terminal's split. =)

[Tyriar]

@whitecolor there's a different between splitting tabs in multiple directions and splitting panes though.