Is there a way to close preview while editor losting focus

[jamesfancy]

When I was editing a markdown file, I need preview. But when I switch to another editor(such as a js code editor) I hope no markdown preview window appear.

So I hope when I switch to another editor, the markdown preview editr(window) can be closed automatically. If I switch back to the markdown editor, the preview window is opened to side again.

Can you implement that?

[yzhang-gh]

That's what I have planned some time ago. 😄

In the long term, the preview behavior might change in future vscode version (e.g. the preview tab might be merged into the Markdown code tab).

And for now, I'll have a try and see if there is a temporary workaround.

[jamesfancy]

Thank you @neilsustc

e.g. the preview tab might be merged into the Markdown code tab

Great news, I like that feature.

[yzhang-gh]

You can find more details about that feature in #22068.

side-by-side preview inside one tab

But I think it will probably take a long time to finish. 😂

---

I've published v0.5.1 with a temporary solution.
If you switch to a non-Markdown file, it will close all editors in other editor groups (usually the preview tab is in group 2). So it will be OK if you always edit your files in group 1.
Hope you will like.

[jamesfancy]

@neilsustc v0.5.1 is not strong. Sometime it kept preview editor and closed other editors. I think it should rollback to v0.5.0.

Then let's wait for improvement of markdown extention.

[yzhang-gh]

Could you provide any reproduction steps?
If it's hard to solve, I will roll back to previous version as you suggested.

[jamesfancy]

@neilsustc OK, the steps are simple.

1. use vscode to open a folder as project
2. open a .md file (enough big size such as 20KB), the preview editor is opened and rendering.
3. open a non-md file such as package.json
4. package.json editor and the md file editor are closed, and the preview pane is still kept.

[yzhang-gh]

I'll rollback to v0.5.0 as there is another user that also found this bug.

[sanjibukai]

Hello,
As I understand this feature is not yet developed...
Is there a workaround to get the preview closed when focus is lost?
I mean, when the preview is opened it has the same name (ex: Preview file.md), maybe searching for opened tab using that name could help..

BTW, thanks great plugin !

[yzhang-gh]

To my knowledge, we can't. Because vscode doesn't provide API to close a editor by name/id.

[yzhang-gh]

I can only find vscode commands like closeActiveEditor etc. So I cannot find a workaround for now...

[sanjibukai]

Thanks for the reply...
I think that vscode can bring focus to a newly opened tab (the behavior when a markdown preview is shown), so can it be possible to bring momentarily focus to that tab based on the history of activated tab (or if not possible to track, with some caveat eg. limiting to one opened markdown preview) to close it immediately afterwards (maybe with a callback)?

[yzhang-gh]

I get your point now 😂. Yes, it's possible, but really dangerous 🤣.

[yzhang-gh]

I tried and as expected it is very unstable and annoying. You won't like it.

[LeBenLeBen]

This would be an awesome feature. Any chance the API changed since your last tentative? Maybe opening a feature request in https://github.com/microsoft/vscode otherwise?

[yzhang-gh]

To my knowledge, no new APIs 😔

I would suggest posting this "auto-closing" feature request to vscode (rather than API) because the Markdown preview feature is actually implemented by vscode. We have little control over it as an extension.

[Trass3r]

I would suggest posting this "auto-closing" feature request to vscode (rather than API) because the Markdown preview feature is actually implemented by vscode.

Well they still haven't implemented auto-hide of the terminal after all those years and lots of votes, not a good sign 😅
microsoft/vscode#10952

[Trass3r]

Also if I drag an .md file into VSCode with other files already open it does enable the preview on the right but then immediately switches the editor back to the previous one. Has anyone else experienced this?

[Lemmingh]

microsoft/vscode#66132

[Gavin-OP]

Is there any progress on automatically close the preview tab when editor is close?

[LeonardoRick]

I don't know how but they managed to do it here: markdown-auto-preview.

It even has an option for closing it when changing file (which I think should be default).

markdown-auto-preview.autoClosePreviewAfterSwitch: Auto close preview window when switch to another tab.

@yzhang-gh maybe you can understand what's being done there and do here as well.