Code faster in VSCode 🏎️

A guide on how to code faster in VS Code. I'm the happiest and most productive when using Neovim, but sometimes I need to use VS Code. Matching neovim's workflow in VS Code does require spending some time - 31 minutes and 50 seconds to be more precise.
🔗 Links:
👉 keybindings.json: gist.github.com/nikolovlazar/...
👉 Color Theme: marketplace.visualstudio.com/...
👉 Icon Theme: marketplace.visualstudio.com/...
👉 Font: Dank Mono
👉 Smooth cursor animation: "editor.cursorSmoothCaretAnimation": "on" in settings.json
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💬 A bunch of us are hanging out at discord.creatures.dev/. Join us!
🐦 Find me on the bird app: / nikolovlazar
🎥 What I use for coding and making videos: nikolovlazar.com/uses
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Chapters:
00:00 - Intro
00:52 - Setup
01:39 - Navigation key bindings
09:45 - Coding key bindings
22:43 - File explorer key bindings
31:28 - Outro

[@nikolovlazar]

Thanks for watching! I already have a few more keybindings in mind, so there might be a Part 2 video soon. What would you like to see?

[@Danielo515]

Have to be honest, didn't expected this to be that good

[@Neutralpointz]

Neovim came into my view a few days ago. I've never really used it, i am mainly a VSCode guy. But this made me curious enough to try vim motions and set up my own keybindigs. Thanks a lot and we need more content like this on here.

[@nikolovlazar]

Glad you liked it! Vim motions definitely changed the way I write and edit code. There are lots of motions that I don't know or I'm not using regularly just yet, but I'm not in a rush. Have fun exploring the Neovim ecosystem! If you have questions or need help, don't hesitate to reach out either here or on the creatures.dev Discord.

[@bleakCode]

This is freaking beautiful! Awesome stuff

[@prashlovessamosa]

this is so helpful thanks.

[@nikolovlazar]

Glad it was helpful!

[@JonMartins]

This is amazing my man. Just added this to my vscode. I mostly use vscode for debugging a little bit and to do formatting or editing of jsons. This is a game changer!

[@nikolovlazar]

Glad you liked it man!

[@RodrigoSilva-un9xh]

This is amazing. Thanks

[@farzadmf]

Very useful video, thank you!

[@b1mind]

Love seeing you show the programming of vsCode keybinds you can do some really powerful stuff.

[@nikolovlazar]

The base functionality is wild. Imagine what you can do with extensions on top of it 😁

[@Knaif]

Nice video, I will try it out. I have been following Ben Awad's TS fullstack video for the last month and have found myself having to move my right hand to hit arrow keys or end a lot when writing code, and have been getting swamped with tabs since I didn't know the shortcuts to navigate between splits and tabs to close them without a mouse. One thing I think was missing in this video was navigating to terminals and swapping between them.

[@nikolovlazar]

Good point! I’m using the default ones for the terminal (ctrl-backtick to toggle, and was it something with ][ to switch between?). I’ll think about what makes the most sense and add it to my keybindings.json file.

[@Yesterday_i_ate_rat]

Amazing vid, Thanks :-D

[@user-ql2vz5kn9q]

You are a legend, I'm kind of facing issues with neovim(nvchad) it is freezing I don't know why, having the same problem with lazyvim too. So kindof thinking to switching back to vscode and came across this video. Now I'll definitely switch to vscode!

[@nikolovlazar]

Thank you! I think I've experienced the freezing issue as well. I think it's the built-in "floating" terminal. Usually happens when I'm using just neovim and I'm using the floating terminal to run apps. I've switched over to tmux + neovim and the issue stopped happening. Is that the same issue you're having?

[@luispedrocamacho]

Great video! Just noticed that your a using a voyager keyboard and you have a kinesys keyboard in your background. What's your opinion between the two? I ask because I have a voyager and I'm struggling a bit so I'm considering to buy the kinesys.

[@nikolovlazar]

I had the Kinesis first and I loved it, but it was too big to carry around, so that's why I got the Voyager. What problems are you having with the voyager? I actually love it. Haven't touched my Kinesis ever since I got the Voyager.

[@Greyvend]

Amazing shortcuts and great easy to follow guide. Well done, sir! Can you share what theme do you use for VS code? And also, how did you make your cursor move so smoothly when you type and jump around?

[@nikolovlazar]

Thanks! I've updated the video description with all the info and links.

[@KevinNitro]

Hi, your video's content is great. ❤❤ Btw what tiling window app / manager you are using? And also the app shows keystroke on screen? 🥰 Also will you update the gist link in the future for more keymaps? Do you include it in your dotfiles repo or something?

[@nikolovlazar]

Hey Kevin! Glad you liked it! Window manager: the built-in functions of Raycast www.raycast.com Keystrokes app: KeyCastr github.com/keycastr/keycastr I'm definitely going to add more keymaps - thinking of debugging keymaps right now (toggle breakpoints, run jobs etc...). I'll try to remember to update the gist, but it's better if I add them to my dotfiles somehow. Still not sure how VSCode does the sync. I might even do a Part 2 video as well.

[@KevinNitro]

@@nikolovlazar can I suggest remap to previous / next selecting items from drop down menu? I wonder if vsc has those apis 🙄

[@nikolovlazar]

I can see that being super useful! I have my arrow keys mapped to hjkl on my keyboard, so I don't have to move my hands to use the arrows, but I think I've seen being used to navigate. I'll look into that keymap as well. So far I got this one + the debugging keymaps, so I can already see the next video forming 😁

[@Yesterday_i_ate_rat]

Can you make a video about your nvim setup ( keymaps, options -- explaining briefly ) & ( what are the plugins you use for web development )

[@nikolovlazar]

That could be cool. Thanks for the idea!

[@warmdev]

what theme are you use for nvim?

[@nikolovlazar]

I'm using oxocarbon in neovim: github.com/nyoom-engineering/oxocarbon.nvim. But I modified it slightly in some places so it plays nicely with other plugins. Here's the full config: github.com/nikolovlazar/dotfiles/blob/main/.config/nvim/lua/plugins/colorscheme.lua

[@warmdev]

@@nikolovlazar thank you

[@belkocik]

What is your keyboard?

[@nikolovlazar]

It's the ZSA Voyager! www.zsa.io/voyager. My main driver before was my Kinesis Advantage (top shelf behind me), but it was too big to carry it around, so I switched to the Voyager.

[@freezxify]

Your discord invite is invalid

[@nikolovlazar]

Which one did you try? The one on creatures.dev should work.

[@EddieVillamor]

So many of these commands already have a built in keybinding. This is basically a loooooong video about how to do keybindings 😴 😴 gotta get back to work and actually code faster.. Would recommend just summarizing each key bindings you use and all the condition predicates instead so we can actually get through these in time.

[@nikolovlazar]

Of course they do. I do mention in the beginning that this video is about matching Neovim's keymaps. It's not about extending VS Code. Thank you for the recommendation though!

[@anvesh777]

Thanks for the video 20:32 to focus git message box { "key": "space g g", "command": "runCommands", "args": { "commands": [ "workbench.scm.focus", "list.focusFirst", "list.select" ] }, "when": "your-when-condition" },

[@nikolovlazar]

Thank you Anvesh! This didn't work for me, but your comment made me google around and I found out that I needed the "multi-command" extension in order to make it work. I've updated the gist in the description, but here's what worked for me: { "key": "space g g", "command": "extension.multiCommand.execute", "when": "vim.mode == 'Normal' && (editorTextFocus || !inputFocus)", "args": { "sequence": ["workbench.view.scm", "workbench.scm.focus"] } }

[@GonzaloStoll]

@@nikolovlazar actually this worked perfectly fine for me: { "key": "space g g", "command": "runCommands", "when": "vim.mode == 'Normal' && (editorTextFocus || !inputFocus)", "args": { "commands": ["workbench.view.scm", "workbench.scm.focus"] } }, Awesome video by the way 👏

[@nikolovlazar]

@@GonzaloStoll hmm that's weird. for some reason my VS Code didn't wait for the first command to finish (opening the scm panel) before trying to focus on the commit input, so the focus never happened. are you running on windows/linux?