Simple Chat

Simple Chat is a lightweight group chat extension for Visual Studio Code.

It lets you join or create chat rooms directly from the VS Code sidebar, talk in real time, paste code or multi-line text, and quickly copy messages when needed.

Features

• Sidebar chat view inside Visual Studio Code
• Create a room or join an existing room
• Optional room password
• Real-time messaging with WebSocket
• Persistent room history loaded on connect
• Online users list
• Copy any message with one click
• Collapse and expand long messages with Show more / Show less
• Insert the current editor selection into the message box
• Compact layout designed for the VS Code sidebar

How it works

After installing the extension, open the Simple Chat icon in the VS Code Activity Bar.

From there you can:

• enter your username
• choose whether to create or join a room
• enter the room code
• optionally provide a password
• connect and start chatting

The connection panel automatically collapses after a successful connection to leave more space for the conversation.

Usage

Connect to a room

1. Open the Simple Chat sidebar
2. Enter your Username
3. Choose:
   • Join room
   • Create room
4. Enter the Room code
5. Enter the Password if needed
6. Click Connect

Send messages

• Type your message in the input box
• Press Enter to send
• Press Shift + Enter to insert a new line

Show online users

Click Show online users to list currently connected users in the room.

Insert selected code or text

Click Insert selection to insert the currently selected text from the active editor into the message box.

This is useful for:

• sharing code snippets
• sending logs
• discussing errors
• pasting multi-line content

Copy messages

Each message includes a copy button.

This copies the full original content of the message, including long messages that are currently collapsed in the UI.

Long messages

Long messages are automatically collapsed for readability.

Use:

• Show more
• Show less

to expand or collapse them without affecting the copy action.

Requirements

Simple Chat requires a running backend server.

The current extension is configured to connect to:

• HTTP API
• WebSocket server

through the URLs defined in the extension source code.

If you are running your own backend, update the server URLs inside the extension source before packaging or publishing.

Extension Settings

This version does not contribute custom VS Code settings yet.

Known limitations

• The extension depends on the availability of the backend server
• There is currently no built-in server URL configuration in the VS Code settings UI
• Authentication is room-based only
• Messages are displayed as plain chat content, without syntax highlighting

Release Notes

0.0.5

• Published marketplace version
• Sidebar-based chat workflow
• Real-time room chat
• Online users action
• Insert editor selection
• Copy message button
• Long message collapse/expand support
• Automatic connection panel collapse after connect

0.0.3

• Initial public packaging improvements
• Cleaner extension package structure

0.0.2

• Added sidebar webview container
• Improved layout and interaction

0.0.1

• Initial extension version

Development

Build

npm run compile