Editor Text Toolkit

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Copy path:12-14 references, convert case, align columns by a regex, open large files as plain text, and compare any two pieces of text.

It is for people who paste code locations into reviews and chats, reshape identifiers, and diff snippets many times a day. Instead of one extension per task, you get one picker that lists every action the extension offers in the editor next to the settings in effect, so you never need to remember a command name. The only default keys are Cmd+U and Cmd+Y in the macOS terminal; it has no runtime dependencies and sends no telemetry.

Get started

1. Run code --install-extension HeavenSky.editor-text-toolkit, or install from the VS Code Marketplace.
2. Press Ctrl+Shift+P (Cmd+Shift+P on macOS) and run Text Toolkit: Show All Commands.
3. Pick a tool, then an action. Once you know what you use, bind a key to it.

Share an exact code location

Copy Path With Line Numbers turns every cursor and selection into one reference that people, issue trackers and AI assistants can trace back to the exact lines. Selecting lines 3–4, 8 and 12–14 copies:

src/app.ts:3-4,8,12-14

The path can be absolute, workspace-relative, ~-relative or just the file name. See Copy a path with line numbers.

Rename and line up text in place

Change Case... converts the selection, or the word under the cursor, to any of 16 styles; for a single-line selection it previews each result before you apply it.

Align by RegEx lines up the selected lines on any separator, and keeps a short line from widening a column it does not reach:

# before                # after
const a = 1;            const a  = 1;
let bbbb = 22;          let bbbb = 22;
var cc = 333;           var cc   = 333;

See Convert case and Align lines by a regular expression.

Open a large log without the editor stalling

Plain text mode switches a file to plaintext and turns off highlighting, minimap, folding, hovers and suggestions for plain text only. Your code files keep their settings. Opened from the Explorer, a large .ts file shows up without waking the TypeScript extension, and leaving the mode restores the language and every setting it changed. See Open large files in plain text mode.

Compare two snippets without saving them

Mark one selection and compare it with another, with the clipboard, with a visible editor or with any open tab. The result opens in VS Code's own diff editor, and each side keeps the language of the file it came from.

Normalization rules hide predictable noise such as timestamps or tabs, and one click turns a comparison into editable copies. See Compare two pieces of text.

Open a path straight from terminal output

Jump from a path printed in the terminal to that file and line, even where VS Code's own link detection splits the path wrongly; relative paths resolve against the terminal's current folder. Select the path, then press Cmd+U (macOS) or right-click it and choose Open Terminal Selection as Path:

# selected in the terminal      # opens in the editor
src/app.ts:12:5                 src/app.ts, cursor at line 12, column 5

Quotes, brackets and trailing punctuation are stripped, and path(12,5), #L12, ~ and file:// forms work too. See Open a terminal selection as a path.

When not to use it

Plain text mode removes rendering and language-service work, not the cost of loading the file: a file of hundreds of MB still loads in full, so use a pager such as less for those. To compare two whole files on disk with Git integration, VS Code's built-in Select for Compare is enough.

Learn more

The guide covers every option, limit and error message. Commands and settings are listed on the marketplace page's Feature Contributions tab. See the changelog for what changed in each release.

License

MIT. Third-party notices are in NOTICE.md.