Code or VSCode or Visual Studio Code editor (should we better call it as an IDE? :)) has got a nice facility to boost our producvity especially when we work on the applications that demand a constant attention with the terminal. Example, Angular, Node applications or even with the static site generators like Hugo etc.,

New Terminal - Folder Selection

VS Code has got two icons on the Terminal window. On the top right, we get a “+” icon to add a new terminal, and depends on the folders added in the workspace it will ask you to choose a folder in which the terminal to be opened - yet another cool feature :) yeay! :)

Split Option in the existing terminal

On an already opened terminal, when you hover the mouse over the terminal name, you get two icons in the small window as follows.

  • Window - To split the terminal
  • Trash - To close/exit the terminal

Clicking on the window icon, the terminal is split on the horizontal side allowing you to operate in parallel on the two terminals easily, with just a mouse click for toggling. Earlier we had to manually select the terminals in the dropdwon appearing on the top and then resume the work.

Image - The + icon

Image - The split terminal menu item

Image - The icons of terminals after split

Icon Status

  • First cmd - Normal Terminal Window (Command Prompt)
  • Second cmd - split into two, where each of them are of type Command Prompt → C:\> indication

This is certainly a productivity booster I would say!

Try this and enjoy.

My Usage - Hugo

I use this for the static site generator Hugo where one window is used for creating a new posts - with hugo new binary, and the other window is to control the hugo server OR hugo server -D (for the drafts). As long as I actively work on Hugo, I have felt the need for these two windows to be operated in parallel.

Image : The split terminal in effect

Note: Of course, you can open as many windows as you want by clicking on the window icon. But I don’t see any practical reasons to open more than 3 terminals at a time!

Cheers,
RM…
Raghavan alias Saravanan Muthu
23 Jun 2021 | Wed | 20:50:51 PM IST