Fast Tasks

Fast Tasks is a VS Code extension that provides quick access to your workspace tasks directly from the explorer view, with optimized performance and enhanced error handling.

Installation

1. Open Visual Studio Code
2. Press Ctrl+P to open the Quick Open dialog
3. Type ext install batyan-soft.fast-tasks to find the extension
4. Click Install

Or install it from the Visual Studio Code Marketplace.

Features

Core Features

• Automatic task execution on click from the explorer view
• Enhanced task view with color-coded icons
• Visual status updates for running, successful, or failed tasks (with exit codes)
• Rich task information display with error recovery
• Quick task refresh capability with caching
• Task filtering and selection
• Optimized performance with task caching
• Robust error handling and recovery
• Stop button for running tasks
• Edit icon button to quickly open task definition in tasks.json file

Visual Features

Task Type Colors

• 🔴 NPM tasks
• 🔵 Shell tasks
• 🟣 TypeScript tasks
• 🟡 Other tasks (default)

Task-specific Icons

• 📦 Build tasks
• 🧪 Test tasks
• 🚀 Launch tasks
• 🐛 Debug tasks
• 👁️ Watch tasks
• 🗑️ Clean tasks
• ☁️ Deploy tasks
• ▶️ Start tasks
• ⏹️ Stop tasks
• ☁️ Publish tasks
• 🏃 Run tasks
• ⚙️ Other tasks (default)

Custom Icons (New!)

You can now define custom icons for your tasks directly in your tasks.json file. These custom icons will take priority over the automatically assigned icons.

To use a custom icon, add an icon object to your task definition with an id and an optional color:

{
  "label": "build:project",
  "type": "shell",
  "command": "make build",
  "icon": {
    "id": "package", // Any valid Codicon ID
    "color": "charts.blue" // Optional: any valid ThemeColor ID
  },
  "group": "build"
}

• The id should be a valid Codicon ID.
• The color (optional) should be a valid ThemeColor ID.

Rich Tooltips

• Detailed task information on hover with error recovery
• Selected Task Highlighting
• Clean Interface
• Enhanced Status

Performance Features

• Task caching for faster updates
• Optimized icon and color lookups
• Efficient task status tracking
• Memory-efficient operation

Planned Features

• Task favorites/pinning functionality
• Task search and filtering capabilities
• Task execution history tracking
• Task dependencies visualization

Usage

1. Locate the Tasks section in the Explorer view
2. Click the selection button (list icon) to choose which tasks to display
3. Select tasks you want to see in the view
4. Click on any task to run it; the task will be highlighted while running
5. View the task status as 'Running...', 'Success', or 'Failed (with exit code)'
6. Use the refresh button to update the task list and clear task statuses
7. Use inline action buttons that appear next to task names:
   • Edit Task (pencil icon) - Click to open the tasks.json file at the exact location where the task is defined
   • Stop Task (stop icon) - Available for running tasks to terminate execution

Keyboard Shortcuts

• Ctrl+Shift+P or Cmd+Shift+P (Mac) and type "Fast Tasks" to see all available commands
• Use arrow keys to navigate through tasks
• Press Enter to run a selected task
• Press Esc to stop a running task

Requirements

• Visual Studio Code version 1.80.0 or higher
• A workspace with defined tasks (in tasks.json or workspace files)

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Please feel free to submit a Pull Request. For major changes, please open an issue first to discuss what you would like to change.

1. Fork the repository
2. Create your feature branch (git checkout -b feature/AmazingFeature)
3. Commit your changes (git commit -m 'Add some AmazingFeature')
4. Push to the branch (git push origin feature/AmazingFeature)
5. Open a Pull Request

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License - see the LICENSE.md file for details.

Known Issues

Please report any issues on the GitHub issues page.

Release Notes

See CHANGELOG.md for detailed release notes.