How to disable file auto-focus in VSCode Explorer panel when file is opened by navigating tabs?

Question

I wonder if there is a setting or a feature request should be submitted for the following:

Currently, if you pick a file from the project explorer, it goes into its own tab. If you have several tabs opened, as you focus any one of them, the file itself also gets focused in the project explorer. For larger projects where you navigate through a lot of files in the project and open files here and there this could actually be a distraction - for some people it would be better not to focus the current file in the project explorer and not lose sight of the last file you actually opened and its neighbour-files.

Another scenario is when you debug a node.js app and need to debug repeatedly with F11 - a lot of times you could find yourself in some ultra-deep node_modules folder that takes over the whole project explorer - and you need to close this manually later to bring the project explorer to order.

Answer 1

To answer the first part, if you add this to your workspace or user settings, vscode will no longer automatically show the currently active file in the file explorer.

"explorer.autoReveal": false

To answer the second part, if you like to have the current file focused but you don't like having the explorer section expanded all over the place, there is a command that can help you. If you put something like this in your keybindings, then whenever you feel the explorer has become unruly you can use the keyboard command. It is also available in the command palette ("Files: Collapse folders in explorer") and there is an icon in the file explorer that looks like this: [-]

{
    "key": "ctrl+shift+t",
    "command": "workbench.files.action.collapseExplorerFolders",
    "when": ""
}

I have also created an extension that can automate this.

Answer 2

You can use a param:

"explorer.autoReveal": "focusNoScroll"

Focus to file will not disabled, but it will work without scroll (that's clear from the param value). It is usefull sometimes.