Instant keyboard-driven editor tab switcher and vertical sidebar navigation shortcuts for
VS Code, VS Code Insiders, and VSCodium. Designed to eliminate the friction of horizontal
tab overflow and provide lightning-fast keyboard access to all active files across your
editor groups.
Modern development workflows often involve keeping dozens of files open simultaneously
across multiple splits and editor groups. As tabs overflow horizontally off the screen:
Visual tab bars become truncated, hidden, or squished.
Navigating with Ctrl+Tab cycles through MRU history slowly.
Opening the Command Palette and typing edt requires extra keystrokes.
R3BL Opened Editors solves this by uniting two essential keyboard workflows:
Instant Keyboard Switcher (Alt+E / Cmd+E): Press Alt+E (or Cmd+E on macOS)
from anywhere to immediately pop open the searchable QuickPick list of all open editors
across every editor group.
Vertical Sidebar Navigation: Pair with VS Code's vertical Open Editors panel in
the sidebar to see all open tabs listed vertically in a clean tree, complete with dirty
indicators, save-all actions, and instant switching. This allows you to work with your
"working set" of files without worrying about horizontal tab overflow. This pairs
nicely with the
R3BL Task Management
extension.
Features
1. Rapid Keyboard Switcher (Alt+E / Cmd+E)
Instantly summons VS Code's native Open Editors QuickPick list across all active editor
groups.
Allows instant fuzzy-filtering and jumping between open tabs without taking your hands
off the keyboard.
Bound by default to Alt+E (Cmd+E on macOS) for muscle-memory convenience.
2. Vertical Open Editors Sidebar Panel Navigation
Pair seamlessly with the built-in Open Editors view in the Primary Side Bar (either
inside the Explorer panel or dragged into its own dedicated Activity Bar icon).
Shows all active files listed vertically, eliminating the limitation of horizontal
tab overflow.
Focus Command: Focus the sidebar panel directly using the R3BL wrapper command:
Command ID: r3bl-opened-editors.focusOpenEditorsView ("R3BL Opened Editors: Focus
Open Editors in Sidebar")
Under the hood, this delegates directly to VS Code's
workbench.files.action.focusOpenEditorsView.
Settings Control: Ensure the panel is always visible with:
"explorer.openEditors.visible": 1
Automatically tracks and synchronizes the active file in real time as you switch tabs or
open new documents.
Easily manage editor tabs in bulk: save dirty files, close all editors, or close
individual files directly from the sidebar.
Security, Privacy & Performance Guarantees
Privacy-First & Secure: Zero telemetry, zero analytics, zero network calls, and zero
filesystem access.
Zero Dependencies: 0 external runtime npm packages (immune to supply-chain
vulnerabilities).
Ultra-Lightweight: Only ~1.5 KB compiled bundle size with near-instant activation.
Pure Native Delegation: Directly drives VS Code's native APIs without running
background loops or injecting UI overhead.
Keyboard Shortcuts & Commands
Shortcut / Trigger
Command ID
Title in Command Palette
Description
Alt+E(Linux / Windows)
r3bl-opened-editors.openedEditors
R3BL Opened Editors: Show Opened Editors
Open searchable dropdown of all open editors
Cmd+E(macOS)
r3bl-opened-editors.openedEditors
R3BL Opened Editors: Show Opened Editors
Open searchable dropdown of all open editors
Customizable
r3bl-opened-editors.focusOpenEditorsView
R3BL Opened Editors: Focus Open Editors in Sidebar
Focus the vertical open editors sidebar panel
Tip: Search for "R3BL Opened Editors" from the VS Code Command Palette (Ctrl+Shift+P /
Cmd+Shift+P) to see all available commands.
Part of the R3BL Suite
This extension is built to integrate seamlessly with the R3BL development ecosystem:
R3BL Extension Pack:
The complete developer suite including themes, semantic highlighting, and task
management.
R3BL Theme:
Dark theme optimized for Rust and Markdown development.
