Include the name of the currently focused view in the window title

[mirober]

Hi, would it be possible to add a setting to modify the title of the VSCode window to include the currently focused panel (editor, terminal, explorer etc)?

I use dictation software for all coding and the easiest way to activate and deactivate sets of commands is by matching on the window title, so for example .py in the window title activates Python commands. It would be useful to be able to activate a certain set of commands for editing code and a different set of commands when using the integrated terminal.

isidorn in the accessibility Gitter channel suggested this be implemented by allowing something like ${focusedView} in the window.title setting, and I think this would work well.

Thanks

[isidorn]

Thanks for filling this. I think it is a fair feature request.
@bpasero let me know what you think, and maybe we open this to PRs?

[auphofBSF]

I as a user of dictation software and contributor to TalonVoice , particularly a set of cross platform VSCODE voice commands, know that showing the focused view in the title bar would be a simple welcome addition to context management. Thank you for considering this feature-request, I hope we can see it soon

[isidorn]

I am opening this up for PRs.
We should tackle this by adding a new variable ${focusedView} to the window.title setting
Code pointer

vscode/src/vs/workbench/browser/parts/titlebar/titlebarPart.ts

Line 235 in cb29362

* {activeEditorShort}: e.g. myFile.txt

[daniel-j-davis]

I'd like to take this one, @isidorn. I've had a skim through the code already, and have a pretty good idea on the work that has to be done, but just wanted to ask for a pointer on where I would get an instance of the focused panel. I did some digging and saw that there's a panel service, that isn't currently used in the TilebarPart class at all, but wasn't sure if it's possible to get the panel from one of the existing services used?

EDIT: dug some more, and seems like it probably isn't the panel service that I'm looking for, so instead just hoping for a pointer on the best way to figure out what's focused.

[isidorn]

@daniel-j-davis great, thanks for offering to look into this.
I would start by trying to use the FocusedViewContext
Code pointer

vscode/src/vs/workbench/common/views.ts

Line 499 in 1b65c63

export const FocusedViewContext = new RawContextKey<string>('focusedView', '');

You can see how other people are using it.
I was expecting that the viewsService has some nicer api to get the focused view, but there does not seem to be anything like that.
@sbatten can correct me if I missed something

[daniel-j-davis]

Yeah, I tried using FocusedViewContext but unless I'm doing something wrong, it doesn't always seem to return what the focused view is. It definitely returns workbench.explorer.fileView when you're clicking through to preview files, and workbench.view.search when you're clicking through search results, but getting an empty string when tabbing between editors, and nothing at all when terminal is focused. I'll keep digging to see if there's a better way to get the focused view, or if I'm missing something with my implementation of FocusedViewContext, but I'm wondering if the optimal approach is to spin another issue up to add a method to the viewsService to get the focused view. Thoughts? @isidorn