VSCode preview markdown by default

Question

99.999999999% of my work with markdown files is reading. Can I enable preview mode by default for this files?

Answer 1

I tried this in VS Code 1.48.1

Method 1

Open a markdown (*.md) file, then open the Command Palette and select >View: Reopen Editor With... > Markdown Preview (Experimental).

Method 2

Add these lines to your settings.json file

{
    // your other settings ...
    "workbench.editorAssociations": [
        {
            "viewType": "vscode.markdown.preview.editor",
            "filenamePattern": "*.md"
        }
    ],
}

Method 3

I am using VS Code 1.61.2 this worked, as I also had some other mappings in the settings.json

{
    // your other settings ...
    "workbench.editorAssociations": [
        {
            "*.md": "vscode.markdown.preview.editor"
        }
    ],
}

Method 4

VSCode team change this configuration, I'm using v1.63.2

{
    "workbench.editorAssociations": {   
        "*.md": "vscode.markdown.preview.editor",
    }
}

Answer 2

If you not only want to read the .md files, I would recommend to you the Markdown All in One VS Code extension.

It provides many useful keyboard shortcuts and also .md file preview, that allows you to edit files and view the relevance of the changes at the same moment.