Breadcrumbs: Should list ever be collapsed?

[JacksonKearl]

I'm not sure that it ever makes sense for the breadcrumbs to be focused but collapsed, gven Shift+Left/Right can navigate between layers even when the list is open. It seems that it just adds an additional step of Ctrl+Shift+. followed by Enter always. Am I missing something here?

[jrieken]

I'm not sure that it ever makes sense for the breadcrumbs to be focused but collapsed, gven Shift+Left/Right can navigate between layers even when the list is open.

Not sure what you mean by collapsed? You mean not showing the picker?

[JacksonKearl]

Yes, is there utility in this view:

?

[jrieken]

Yeah, it provides context about your current cursor position and allows you to navigate to them using ctrl/cmd-click and shift-enter. It has been explicitly been asked for
#9418 (comment). We can think of another keybinding the combines 'activate breadcrumbs' and 'select active crumb' tho

[mihailik]

Breadcrumbs help making sense where you are in a large file.

After having them in Visual Studio (proper) it feels surprisingly difficult to read the same code in VSCode. TypeScript codebase itself has such large files - and scrolling to the middle you immediately left to guessing what is the context here.

That particularly applies to more functional languages like JavaScript - whereas in Java/C# you generally have very shallow nesting: class, then method. TypeScript/JavaScript often declare function within function, and the ambiguity of multiple closing curly brackets disorientates too much.

A navigating device like breadcrumbs helps a lot. Of course tuning the styles and some behaviour could make it even better, this is a prototype work in progress still. AWESOME work in progress!! :-D

[JacksonKearl]

What about if we allowed filtering by name while the list is not expanded, such that any typing would expand the list and start the filtering?

[mihailik]

@JacksonKearl typing where?

[JacksonKearl]

Typing when the breadcrubs bar has focus is currently a noop. It would be nice if it could start filtering as you type without needing to press Enter first

[mihailik]

Yes, totally.

The keyboard story was completely off when I tried few days ago -- assuming it's left for later. Like, to close the dropdown you hit Esc like 5 times.

[jrieken]

Pushed a change that makes Cmd+Shift+. focus and select the last breadcrumb. Also added another command Cmd+Shift+; that only focuses (as before)