What's new in Project Manager 12.4

Organize your projects with Tags
Adds Virtual Workspaces support
Adds Workspace Trust support
Improved Side Bar usability
Full Remote Development support

Support

Project Manager is an extension created for Visual Studio Code. If you find it useful, please consider supporting it.

Project Manager

It helps you to easily access your projects, no matter where they are located. Don't miss those important projects anymore.

You can define your own Projects (also called Favorites), or choose for auto-detect Git, Mercurial or SVN repositories, VSCode folders, or any other folder.

Here are some of the features that Project Manager provides:

Save any folder or workspace as a Project
Auto-detect Git, Mercurial or SVN repositories
Organize your projects using Tags
Open projects in the same or new window
Identify deleted/renamed projects
A Status Bar which identifies the current project
A dedicated Side Bar

Features

Available Commands

Project Manager: Save Project Save the current folder/workspace as a new project
Project Manager: Edit Project Edit your projects manually (projects.json)
Project Manager: List Projects to Open List all saved/detected projects and pick one
Project Manager: List Projects to Open in New Window List all saved/detected projects and pick one to be opened in New Window
Project Manager: Filter Projects by Tag Filter the Favorite projects by selected tags

Manage your projects

Save Project

You can save the current folder/workspace as a Project at any time. You just need to type its name.

It suggests a name to you automatically :)

Edit Projects

For easier customization of your project list, you can edit the projects.json file, directly inside Code. Just execute Project Manager: Edit Projects and the projects.json file is opened. Simple as this:

[
    {
        "name": "Pascal MI",
        "rootPath": "c:\\PascalProjects\\pascal-menu-insight",
        "tags": [],
        "enabled": true
    },
    {
        "name": "Bookmarks",
        "rootPath": "$home\\Documents\\GitHub\\vscode-bookmarks",
        "tags": [
            "Personal",
            "VS Code"
        ],
        "enabled": true
    },
    {
        "name": "Numbered Bookmarks",
        "rootPath": "~\\Documents\\GitHub\\vscode-numbered-bookmarks",
        "tags": [
            "Personal",
            "VS Code"
        ],
        "enabled": false
    }
]

You can use ~ or $home while defining any path. It will be replaced by your HOME folder.

Be sure that the JSON file is well-formed. Otherwise, Project Manager will not be able to open it, and an error message like this should appear. In this case, you should use the Open File button to fix it.

Access

List Projects to Open

Shows your projects and select one to open.

List Projects to Open in New Window

Just like List Projects but always opening in New Window.

Keyboard Focused Users

If you are a keyboard focused user and uses Vim like keyboard navigation, you can navigate thru the project list with your own keybindings.

Just use the when clause "inProjectManagerList", like:

    {
        "key": "ctrl+j",
        "command": "workbench.action.quickOpenSelectNext",
        "when": "inProjectManagerList"
    }

Working with Remotes

The extension support Remote Development scenarios, and you may choose how to use it, depending on your needs

I access Remotes, but most of my work is Local

This is the regular scenario, and that's why you don't need to do anything special for the extension to work. It works out of the box.

When installed locally, you can save any Container, SSH, WSL or Codespaces projects as Favorites. Each one will have its own icon to be properly identified, and when you select them, VS Code will open the remote automatically.

It just works

But what if I do most of my work on Remotes

If you normally connect to remotes (like SSH/WSL) and would like to save Favorite projects on that remote, or to be able to auto-detect repos located on that remote, you must activate/install the extension to work on remotes.

You just have to add the lines below on your User Settings.

    "remote.extensionKind": {
        "alefragnani.project-manager": [
            "workspace"
        ]
    },

More details on VS Code documentation

Available Settings

You can choose how your projects are sorted

Saved: The order that you saved the projects
Name: The name that you typed for the project
Path: The full path of the project
Recent: The recently used projects

    "projectManager.sortList": "Name"

Choose if the project list must be grouped by its kind (Favorites, Git, Mercurial, SVN and VS Code).

    "projectManager.groupList": true

Should the current project be removed from the list? (false by default)

    "projectManager.removeCurrentProjectFromList": true

Should identify invalid paths on project list? (true by default)

    "projectManager.checkInvalidPathsBeforeListing": false

Should show the parent folder info when projects with same name are detected? (false by default)

    "projectManager.showParentFolderInfoOnDuplicates": true

Filter Projects Through Full Path (false by default)

    "projectManager.filterOnFullPath": true

Custom projects file (projects.json) location

If you intend to share projects between Stable and Insider installations, or if you store your settings in different locations (cloud services), you can indicate an alternative location for the projects.json file.

    "projectManager.projectsLocation": "C\\Users\\myUser\\AppData\\Roaming\\Code\\User"

You can use ~ or $home while defining the path. It will be replaced by your HOME folder.

Automatic Detection of Projects (Git , Mercurial , SVN and VSCode )

    "projectManager.git.baseFolders": [
        "c:\\Projects\\code",
        "d:\\MoreProjects\\code-testing",
        "$home\\personal-coding"
    ]

Define the folders which contains the projects

    "projectManager.git.ignoredFolders": [
        "node_modules", 
        "out", 
        "typings", 
        "test"
        "fork*"
    ],

Define which folders should be ignored (inside the BaseFolders).

It supports glob patterns

    "projectManager.git.maxDepthRecursion": 4

Define how deeps it should search for projects

Should ignore projects found inside other projects? (false by default)

    "projectManager.ignoreProjectsWithinProjects": true

Cache automatically detected projects (true by default)

    "projectManager.cacheProjectsBetweenSessions": false

Display the Project Name in Status Bar (true by default)

    "projectManager.showProjectNameInStatusBar": true

Open projects in New Window when clicking in status bar (false by default)

    "projectManager.openInNewWindowWhenClickingInStatusBar": true

Indicates if the New Window command should open the project in current window, when empty (always by default)
- always: Whenever you call the Open in New Window command, it will open in the current window, if empty
- onlyUsingCommandPalette: Only open in the current window if you use the Command Palette
- onlyUsingSideBar: Only open in the current window if you use the Side Bar
- never: Works as today. The Open in New Window command will always open in New Window

    "projectManager.openInCurrenWindowIfEmpty": "always"

Indicates the list of tags you can use to organize your projects (Personal and Work by default)

    "projectManager.tags": [
        "Personal", 
        "Work",
        "VS Code",
        "Learning"
    ]

Side Bar

The Project Manager extension has its own Side Bar, with a variety of commands to improve you productivity.

Project Tags - View and Filter

Starting in v12.3, you can now organize your Projects with Tags.

You can define your custom tags (via projectManager.tags setting), define multiple tags for each project, and filter the projects baded on their tags.

Installation and Configuration

You should follow the official documentation to:

Install the extension
Modify its settings

vscode-project-managerProject Manager Extension for Visual Studio Code