Don't Use the Sidebar in VS Code!!

If you want to write code faster, don't use the Sidebar in VS Code. It will slow you down! As a developer, your goal should be to keep your hands off of the mouse as much as possible. To do that, you should learn to use the built-in shortcuts in VS Code as well as a few amazing extensions. Learn how you can work with your files in VS Code without using the File Explorer or the Sidebar.
Advanced New File Extension - marketplace.visualstudio.com/...
File Utils Extension - marketplace.visualstudio.com/...
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[@yiqiangjizhang]

CTR + W: Close files CTR + P: Find files CTR + Tab: Switch windows CTR + SHIFT + P: Command Palette (for commands)

[@sarcasticdna]

For commands instead press F1

[@icarloscode7631]

File Utils extension.

[@devhammed]

CTRL+K CTRL+W: Close All Files

[@rafaelsalimov934]

CTR + SHIFT + T open recently closed file

[@squidiebah]

@@sarcasticdna Always done this

[@johnwellbelove148]

I've been a developer for over 40 years now, and I can safely say that "writing code faster" is one of the lesser useful skills to have. I actually spend most of my time 'thinking' about code, not editing code. Saving the odd few seconds when editing would make very little difference to my overall productivity.

[@navossoc]

My man!!!!!!! Kudos

[@iamkevinpatel]

That's what I was going to comment.

[@wangcongzhou]

Exactly. And you are more successful as a developer when you get senior and write less code

[@netty7263]

Think the same but for me it's more about convenience. I get annoyed having to grab the mouse. I rather do everything on keyboard.

[@Meruem-wi7yn]

Finally some truth of out experienced person, rather than focusing on learning this short keys use what you are comfortable with and focus on what is important not this bs. no offense he is just making a content and everything maybe for some people it is useful

[@phucnguyen0110]

Short recap for those who might not want to watch the full video: Ctrl + P: File search Ctrl + Tab: Switch between opening file tabs Advanced New File from Extension Marketplace => Ctrl + Shift + P (or do a custom shortcut like James demonstrated) File Utils Extension from Extension Marketplace => Ctrl + Shift + P again P/S: I love the VSCode customization video you did previously James!

[@phucnguyen0110]

@Chirag np ^^

[@trungnghianguyen1229]

nice, bro!

[@Ares9323]

Why does everyone use CTRL+SHIFT+P when F1 does the same thing?

[@user-ek6il2uc6s]

@@Ares9323 FR

[@craigluedtke3885]

Been with vscode since the beginning. Somehow file utils is the extensions I didn't know I needed! Bingo bango thanks!!

[@soromiso]

frequently I watch your short footages which are very useful and help me a lot, thank you.

[@edwinreyes3998]

I subscribed a minute into this video in do part to your emphasis on improving short cuts. This is the sort of content I have been looking for. I am excited to see what the rest of your content has to offer!

[@edwinreyes3998]

watched the entire video and I am thoroughly impressed.

[@joostschuur]

I've moved my file explorer pane to the right. It's usually hidden, but this way when I do pop it open, my main code window doesn't shift over.

[@kapsnotes9814]

Nice trick for someone new. But as mentioned in this video, you need to minimize use of side bar to be a good power user.Using key board is much faster then mouse. Also, when you use side bar, it should have main focus, not the editor window. This is just my view. Everyone must figure out, what works best for them and your idea is also great for many. May be it just won't work for me.

[@aybak3k]

thx for the tip I done the same!

[@joostschuur]

@@kapsnotes9814 When you move the File Explorer, you’re also moving the same place where the built in git client, the extension browser, the search results and more appear.

[@tyafizi]

I don't hide it all the time to keep my code closer to the center

[@RomanFrolow]

Yep, I do the same 🙂

[@willadams6217]

Next thing you know, you'll be using Vim!

[@kapsnotes9814]

Exactly, using Vim makes editing much faster. Though I don't use vim natively, I prefer vim plugins in my Editor/IDE.

[@grzegorzklimek6023]

I use neovim but it take some time to configure it to have good setup, but vscode has nice vim plugin so I would sugegest to start with it for those who are thinking about using vim for keyboard driven workflow

[@willadams6217]

@@grzegorzklimek6023 just use the vim extension in VS code then, it's a great intro to using vim.

[@grammenoudis]

@@grzegorzklimek6023 it took me 2 days to find all the plugins i use and configure vim, the .vimrc file is 200 lines long, oof.

[@DeViLTh0rn]

Hey i saw you in Udemy as well... thanks for helping us heheh

[@ramon8051]

Great tip. I stopped using the sidebar as well and definitely improved my experience in vscode and production in general.

[@prodrigu75]

I recently bought a Macbook Pro and am getting used to working a lot more with the keyboard than with the mouse. I start putting your video into practice from now on. Greetings from Santiago de Chile

[@CarloPiana]

Great stuff. Personally, learning, tweaking and adding shortcuts to apps is the first thing I do when I start actually using it, and sharing through my several machines.

[@HectorRodriguezTriathlete]

I have been a shortcut user since WordStar.. minimalistic usage of mouse. Thanks for this video

[@cacanantes]

Great tips. Thanks for sharing.

[@jacobtb1]

awesome workflow. thanks

[@user-wg3wf3bm7d]

It has been of great use. Thank you

[@FilledStacks]

Dooooope! I use to be super hands off mouse when I still worked in Visual Studio for C++ & C# development. I fell of the wagon, but this is great start to be mouse only again. Awesome vid!

[@jckss121]

Thanks for the video, this was very beneficial to learn some shortcuts. I concur that keeping hands on the keyboard will increase productivity overall.

[@sob3ygrime]

Thanks very helpful extensions

[@musababdullah1249]

Control + G let’s you move to a specific line in a line. I find that rlly helpful when I have test cases on specific lines in a file

[@jorget9179]

Very useful video, thank you!

[@ddarkodev2923]

Thanks, James! Great stuff as usual 👍

[@rezataba6204]

Great content as always!

[@aaronvasilev2371]

Bro, you have already speed up myself, and now I returning to this video again to speed up even more

[@Kitsune_Dev]

Amazing thank you for this video, I’ll use this for my workflow

[@adrianosouza3774]

Amazing and useful video. Thank's for the tips!

[@leslo360]

OHH Man thank you so much, I needed all this

[@AlphaTacDef1]

This is gold. Thank you for sharing. 🙏👍

[@user-pm4vd6ij8i]

Cool. Thank you. Very helpful!

[@ayushchaudhary6854]

Very well explained. 👏

[@JoeSteele]

File Utils is amazing -- thanks for this!

[@andresgarcia2243]

Ty very much James! Really good stuff

[@SirBuitrago]

Great video brother!

[@omarhasan7622]

nice tutorial. thanks!

[@nasifmahbub1020]

I am liking your videos more and more. Thanks for the useful tips. 😁

[@jenstornell]

This is quick James. 😊

[@hendersonfernandes7378]

thanks for this video. helped a lot

[@pedronunes8766]

My favorite, without a doubt, is command + / (toggle comment). Also use a lot command + B to toggle the side bar... mostly to see file paths

[@dr.mikeybee]

Very helpful!

[@kapsnotes9814]

Awesome, I got couple of new things. However for new file/dir, rename, delete, I use/suggest CMD/CTRL + ` (open in-build terminal) followed by unix commands like touch, mkdir, mv, rm respectively. With that, I can make multiple sub-folders as well with single command. Thus, I suggest mastering unix terminal commands as well. I'm also huge fan of shortcuts but I try to install as little as possible extensions as too many extensions may make VS code (Or any IDE/editor) slow.

[@vintprox]

Agreeing that these extensions tend to make it more weird and less appealing - especially when you basically have to rebind shortcuts 😒 Only if it was a matter of 1-3 seconds to move something with command line, I'd consider students to hone this skill instead of reaching to the mouse. But at least if they can rename by click+F2, it's the step in correct direction 👌I still can't figure what's faster than that.

[@AmodeusR]

Advanced new tabs allows you tu create as many subfolders as you want, just write the folder name followed by \ and it'll be created as a folder, not as a file.

[@AmodeusR]

@@vintprox Why rebinding a shortcut *once* in a lifetime is a hassle? That's so stupidly simple to do that I don't understand such complaint.

[@beerenmus2410]

Thanks, very useful 👍

[@azaternis]

It helped a lot. thanks

[@dennisdesmornes2655]

great content! caught wind of you via Traversy, happy I did

[@CredenceEve]

This is freaking awesome!

[@tritrumkt88]

Great! Mastering keyboard shortcuts will save we a lot of time.

[@VenkateshMogili]

Thank you James😍😍👍

[@dwiismantoyuwono]

thanks for amazing video!

[@alexandervg1576]

Man I never realised that I need a complete VS code shortscuts guide

[@zezeandjr4110]

JQ2, born to teach, another excellent set of tips..

[@angel-pu7su]

Nice. Thank you.

[@noopurp123]

File Utils MVP of this video for me :)

[@danielurizar7629]

4:34 shorter way for windows: "F1" instead of "CTRL + SHIFT + P" :)

[@rezataba6204]

Worked on Linux too :) seems to be a VS-Code SC. Good tip thanks!

[@LucianoDiiSouza]

Great content!

[@zieuw]

You can hide the activity bar completely by finding it in command palette, so you can practice using your keyboard. You will learn it fast as you are forced to use keyboard everytime you need to do something. Useful shortcuts: ctrl+shift+e for explorer, ctrl+shift+f for search, ctrl+shift+g for git, d and x for debugging and eXtensions respectively.

[@zieuw]

@Chirag can't imagine editing without these features :)

[@codingmastery3186]

Love your video man

[@judlup]

CTRL + G is the solution about your title, great video :)

[@sergiopalacio3722]

Great thank you!

[@ratatacks]

(cmd + shift + e) or (ctrl + shift + e ) opens the side bar in the file you have currently open, that helps if you want to open a file in the same root and also I find that easier for renaming files, since i don't need to install another extension. It would just make it a little bit harder for moving files

[@DaveCollison]

Great video with some very useful hints and tips. Although, from my own personal perspective, I'm like, 'What's the rush?'. I don't mind taking my time on developing. I don't think of it as something that has to be done as quickly and super-efficiently as possible. But, for those who do, this is a helpful video.

[@JamesQQuick]

I think with any activity I do on a regular basis i want to continuously improve. If you’re comfortable with your existing workflow, that’s perfect!

[@nathenn]

Amazing....!!!! Thanks..!!

[@alambertt]

Very helpfull this video. Thks a lot

[@jeffbee6090]

...great video! I would love to see a more in-depth video on OTHER things I can do to not touch the mouse~

[@stanislausalvajufinto8735]

Finally, useful recommendation from youtube

[@NgodingPintar]

Thanks sir.

[@csxinfo1]

Ctrl + k + w closes all your files. Thanks for your content

[@henry-js]

You could do most of this simply from the command file with zsh or PowerShell

[@apekshitsonawane8378]

Thank you sir

[@donmikkodanm.olmillo8154]

Hi :) Will you please do an update of your VS Code extensions / settings also your favorite code snippets and keyboard binding? I really love your channel and thank you so much!

[@gius1337]

Thanks for the tips! Clear video and instructions. Personally I am not a fan of a ton of plugins and custom keys shortcuts. The reason is that when you need to switch computers, or instruct someone else, it is hard. I use two alternatives: 1. command+` to toggle console and touch or code (create), mv (rename), rm (del) for file CRUD 2. command+b to toggle tree view, move with the arrows and enter to rename, space to open and command+b again I'm still trying to figure out to have more control navigating the tree with the keyboard, like opening to the side Also I'm trying the vim plugin occasionally, but I need more practise to make it work for me

[@john-sallyshared2577]

That's always been my issue with a highly customised editor. When you use a colleague's editor or they use yours, then you are going to waste a lot of time figuring out someone else's set of 'shortcuts.'

[@goldenekpendu]

Just popped in to say I love the thumbnail 😎

[@clebsgaming92]

I feel amazing navigating the IDE with the keyboard. With the mouse, not so much

[@FujiiCat]

Thank for u sharing！

[@inephekt]

Ctrl + - (on Mac) to cycle through your cursor position history. It’ll even open closed files, which is nice. You can add the shift key to go forward as well.

[@douglasbeltowski7921]

I just tried this and it had a zooming effect for me.

[@sakibcoder]

very helpful

[@alibarznji2000]

I love this guy

[@albannurkollari]

One of my favorite personal keybinds (assigned to Ctrl + Shift + M) is for Change Language Mode feature. When you create a new file (without the extensions you presented in the video) in VS Code via Ctrl + N, it has no extension assigned nor any IntelliSense library loaded from the start, therefore the second thing after I create a new file is changing the language mode with that keybind, e.g. to JS.

[@WinS392]

i started doing this recently. i realized that looking for files in the sidebar was causing me constant frustration in big projects. i'm trying to make coding more "ergonomic".

[@odonatojunior]

Hey James, there are some shortcuts for the sidebar icons too. When I need to access the Explorer for the files I hit CTRL+SHIFT+E, same thing with Git(CTRL+SHIFT+G) and so on.

[@joejohn.]

Same. And you can just start typing to search for the file too, no scrolling necessary. VSCode's searching is great. I can hit Ctrl Shift E, type "usprocon" to locate "UserProfileController.php" then hit F2 to rename, Del to delete, Enter to open, etc.

[@raphtlw]

you can also switch between tabs on mac by pressing option+command+right arrow or left arrow

[@DrJoeNjenga]

James you need to do a video on building vs code extensions.

[@Burdjur]

My most used command is probably alt + any numerical key (mostly 1 - 5) to switch between open tabs. tab + 1 for, well, tab 1, and tab + 2 for... you get the idea. I always use two work groups as well, so my IDE is always split. I use alt + w to swap between the two work groups as well, this paired with alt 1 - 5 makes it a breeze to navigate when you have a lot of files with dependencies that you need to keep track of.

[@sunofabeach9424]

I also bind alt+left/right arrow to move between tabs horizontally

[@jotaro9664]

Thank you 🙏

[@nightcoder5k]

To create a new file, I normally hit ctrl-~ to open a zsh terminal, type code dir/to/new/file. It will create the folders for you then open the new file in the editor. Once you save it, it shows up in the project.

[@dickyalfattah5068]

Thankss you so much

[@PetrGallistl]

I found really useful CTRL + 2x P or CTRL + 2x E. Works like CTRL tab.

[@karnellschultz6446]

Nice video. I think these kinds of tips are cool and nice to learn but their importance is a bit overstated. Sure it's nice and quick to do xyz but in reality it's a micro improvement.

[@champsurapong2694]

Sucha amazing thing rock you!

[@zecuse]

In addition to ctrl+W, ctrl+shift+T undoes close tabs like ctrl+Z undoes actions. In addition to ctrl+tab, adding shift to that reverses the selection direction if you keep pressing tab. Similarly, ctrl+pgup switches you to the tab to the left (pgdn goes right) cycling to the end (beginning) if it's reached and adding shift to this moves the tab you're in currently in that direction but doesn't cycle. This also cycles through split views as well but the shift modifier will not move across views, see below. Lastly, ctrl+alt+right arrow moves the tab to the right split view (left arrow left) or creates a new view if you're at the end. The UI gets really janky if too many are open, probably dependent on your monitor size. I can get up to 6 horizontal views before things start breaking: there's a scrollbar that's hard to access, file contents remain where they are instead of following their view when that scrollbar is used, things overlap the sidebar, etc.

[@naranyala_dev]

Awesome 👏👏

[@jmfda00]

Ctrl+B to toggle the side bar is also essencial for this workflow

[@aliyoussef97]

Great video which lead me to remember vim, so do you use it or think of using it and finally do u recommend using it ?

[@SajidAliSoftwareEngineer]

awesome thank you for the nice tips. you miss tab navigation for mac one question can you show your development setup with a complete office environment

[@MaxProgramming]

Most of the shortcuts resemble browser shortcuts. Ctrl P and Ctrl Shift P are my favourite shortcuts 😍

[@vickylance]

Well it is a browser :P

[@MaxProgramming]

@@vickylance 😂 True

[@JamesQQuick]

Hahaha nicely done!!

[@JeesJoy]

@@JamesQQuick done what?

[@Twiiniil]

Ctrl + alt + f is also useful to search/replace in all files

[@beninip]

Thanks, i really appreciate this video. By the way, i wanna know what is the name of the theme are you using your vscode ?

[@saidkorseir192]

Hi James thanks for video. Which keyboard are you using? Which keyboards can you suggest us?

[@Afghah]

Awesome video James. Thanks for sharing. One thing that has caught my eyes since I've watched few of your videos is the white-balance is off and your videos are shifted toward cooler hues; is that intentional?

[@mmikael281]

I honestly don't look for ways to write code faster. More important is to write better and functional code that is easy to read. Writing speed is unimportant long-term productivity. I don't see coding as a writing job it is designed what you do. Most coders should slow down, write less, and think more. But this is only my own experience as developer last ten years. Also, we are all different, I don't use search because most of the time I don't remember file names. :)

[@JamesQQuick]

Definitely all different. Thanks for chiming in!

[@bertjuuhh182]

One that I use a lot to switch between open files is CTRL + PgUp or PgDn instead of CTRL + TAB

[@FishySwordfish]

May I ask what color theme is that? Looks really good

[@syedzubair7368]

You can also close all opened files by holding on command and pressing k followed by w. (cmd (hold) + k + w)