Lemari - Project Manager

Keep all your projects in one place, and open any of them in a couple of keystrokes.

Lemari is Indonesian for wardrobe: a cabinet where everything has its place. The extension keeps the projects you save as favorites and the repositories it finds on disk in one organized list. Press Shift+Alt+P, type part of a name or path, and choose whether to open the project in this window or a new one.

Forked from Project Manager by Alessandro Fragnani.

Features

• Favorites. Save the current folder or workspace, or any folder picked in the system dialog, under a name of your choice.
• Tags and icons. Saving asks for the name, the tags and an icon in one flow. Group the Favorites view by tag, filter by tag, and change tags, icon, name or path later from the Side Bar.
• Auto-detected repositories. Point Lemari at base folders and it lists every Git, SVN and Mercurial repository, every VS Code project, or every folder inside them.
• Quick switching. One grouped list (Favorites, Git, VSCode, Mercurial, SVN, Any) with the name and path on two lines. Typing matches both.
• Side Bar. A Lemari view in the Activity Bar with Favorites plus one view per kind of detected project.
• Sorting. Order projects by saved order, name, path or most recently used.
• Status Bar. Shows the current project name; click it to switch.
• Remote projects. Favorites can point at remote folders (Containers, SSH, Codespaces and more) and open the remote when picked.
• Plain storage. Favorites live in a projects.json file you can edit by hand.
• Working across WSL and Windows. WSL paths open as real WSL remote windows, and any project can be reopened on the other side.

Contents

• Quick start
• Save and organize favorites
• Auto-detect repositories
• Open a project
• Side Bar, Status Bar and What's New
• Working across WSL and Windows
• Commands
• Settings reference
• Troubleshooting
• Extension API
• Credits & origin
• License

Quick start

1. Install Lemari (exeltarkus.lemari) from the Extensions view.
2. Save a favorite. Open a folder or workspace and run Lemari: Save Project, or use Add Folder to Favorites... in the Favorites title bar to pick a folder without opening it. Enter a name, then pick tags and an icon (or skip them).
3. Add a base folder. In the Git view, click Add Git Base Folder... and pick the folder that holds your repositories. Every repository inside it is listed.
4. Switch. Press Shift+Alt+P (Cmd+Alt+P on macOS), or open the Lemari view in the Activity Bar.

Save and organize favorites

Save

There are three ways to save a favorite:

• Lemari: Save Project saves the current folder or workspace.
• Add Folder to Favorites... (Favorites title bar and Command Palette) opens the system folder dialog, so you can save any folder without opening it. In a remote window the dialog shows the remote file system.
• Add to Favorites in the context menu of an auto-detected project promotes it to a favorite.

Each one asks for the name, then the tags (with a button to add new tags), then an icon (any codicon). Press Esc at any step to cancel. Saving a name that already exists updates that project, with its current tags and icon preselected.

Edit from the Side Bar

Right-click a favorite:

All projects also offer Add to Workspace and Reveal in Explorer / Reveal in Finder / Reveal in File Manager, depending on your OS.

Tags

The tags offered when saving come from lemari.tags (default Personal, Work) plus any tag already used by a favorite. Switch the Favorites view between View as List and View as Tags from its title bar, and use Filter Projects by Tag to show only some tags in both the view and the project list. tags.collapseItems controls whether tag groups start expanded or collapsed.

Edit projects.json by hand

Edit Projects opens the file behind the favorites:

[
    {
        "name": "Bookmarks",
        "rootPath": "$home\\Documents\\GitHub\\vscode-bookmarks",
        "tags": [ "Personal", "VS Code" ],
        "icon": "rocket",
        "enabled": true,
        "profile": "VSCode"
    }
]

• ~ and $home expand to your home folder.
• icon is a codicon id; leave it out for the default folder icon.
• profile opens the project with that VS Code profile.
• Set lemari.projectsLocation to keep the file in another folder, for example one shared between Stable and Insiders.

If the file is not valid JSON the extension says so and offers Open File so you can fix it.

Auto-detect repositories

Each kind has its own settings and, once it has base folders, its own Side Bar view:

For each kind:

• baseFolders lists folders or glob patterns to scan. Windows paths, WSL UNC paths, ~ and $home all work.
• ignoredFolders lists folders or glob patterns to skip.
• maxDepthRecursion limits how deep the scan goes (default 4; any value below 1 means no limit).

For Git, Add Git Base Folder... (Git view title bar, Git welcome view and Command Palette) picks a folder in the system dialog and adds it to lemari.git.baseFolders in your user settings. For the other kinds, edit settings.json:

"lemari.git.baseFolders": [
    "C:\\Projects",
    "D:\\Work\\client-*",
    "$home\\personal"
],
"lemari.git.ignoredFolders": [ "node_modules", "out", "fork*" ],
"lemari.git.maxDepthRecursion": 4

Backslashes differ between the two editors. In settings.json each backslash is escaped, as above. In the Settings UI you type the real path with single backslashes, for example C:\Projects. Doubled backslashes in the Settings UI find nothing, and no error is shown.

Related switches: supportSymlinksOnBaseFolders follows symlinks, ignoreProjectsWithinProjects skips nested projects, any.excludeBaseFoldersFromResults leaves the base folders themselves out of the Any list, and cacheProjectsBetweenSessions avoids a full rescan at every start. Run Refresh Projects (or the per-kind refresh button in each view) after changing folders on disk.

Open a project

How the list is built

Each project takes two lines: the name on top, the path below. A project whose folder no longer exists is marked Path does not exist.

With lemari.groupList set to true (the default) the list shows one section per kind, each header with its number of projects (for example Git (55)), in this order:

1. Favorites, with their custom icon, a folder icon, or a remote icon for remote paths
2. Git
3. VSCode
4. Mercurial
5. SVN
6. Any

Within each section projects follow lemari.sortList (Saved, Name, Path or Recent). Set groupList to false for a single flat list without separators.

Typing matches the name and the path (for example repos\api). Set filterOnFullPath to false to match names only. The current project is hidden from the list unless you turn off removeCurrentProjectFromList, and with git.showBranchName set to onlyInCommandPalette or always each Git project shows its current branch.

Keyboard navigation

While the list is open the inProjectManagerList context is set, so you can bind your own keys:

{
    "key": "ctrl+j",
    "command": "workbench.action.quickOpenSelectNext",
    "when": "inProjectManagerList && (isWindows || isLinux)"
},
{
    "key": "ctrl+shift+j",
    "command": "workbench.action.quickOpenSelectPrevious",
    "when": "inProjectManagerList && (isWindows || isLinux)"
}

Side Bar, Status Bar and What's New

• Side Bar. The Lemari view has Favorites plus one view per configured kind. Each view has buttons to list its projects, refresh (auto-detected views) and open the related settings. The Favorites title bar adds Save Project, Add Folder to Favorites..., Edit Projects, the list/tags toggle, Filter Projects by Tag, and a View & Sort menu (Sort by Saved, Name, Path or Recent).

• Current project highlight. The open project is highlighted; pick your own color:

  "workbench.colorCustomizations": {
      "lemari.sideBar.currentProjectHighlightForeground": "#e13015"
  }
  

• Status Bar. Shows the current project name (showProjectNameInStatusBar); click it to open the project list.

• What's New. Lemari: What's New shows the latest changes, the release timeline of this fork, and shortcuts to open a project, save one or set Git base folders. It follows your VS Code theme.

Working across WSL and Windows

On Windows, Lemari runs on the local side and handles projects stored in WSL.

WSL paths open as WSL windows

Any favorite or detected project under \\wsl.localhost\<distro>\... or \\wsl$\<distro>\... opens as vscode-remote://wsl+<distro>/.... You get a WSL remote window with Linux tools and fast file access, not a local window browsing a network share.

WSL folders work as base folders too. In settings.json escape every backslash:

// settings.json
"lemari.git.baseFolders": [
    "C:\\Projects",
    "\\\\wsl.localhost\\Ubuntu\\home\\me\\repos"
]

In the Settings UI type \\wsl.localhost\Ubuntu\home\me\repos with single backslashes. Add Git Base Folder... used in a WSL window stores the folder as \\wsl.localhost\... for you.

Open in WSL / Open in Windows

Every project in the Side Bar has two extra context menu entries on Windows:

The default distribution is the one marked * in wsl -l -v; change it with wsl --set-default <distro>. If none is found, the project is not opened and a message explains why. Only WSL projects can be opened in Windows.

The default automount root /mnt/ is assumed; a custom root in /etc/wsl.conf is not supported.

Allowed UNC hosts are handled for you

VS Code refuses UNC hosts that are not listed in security.allowedUNCHosts, and it does so silently: a WSL base folder simply returns no projects. On Windows, when any baseFolders entry points at \\wsl.localhost\... or \\wsl$\..., the extension adds the missing host (wsl.localhost and/or wsl$) to that setting and offers Reload Window. The setting is application-scoped, so it is written to the Default profile's settings. If a reload is not enough, restart VS Code.

Commands

Settings reference

All settings start with lemari..

List and windows

Tags

Auto-detection

Per kind (git, vscode, hg, svn, any):

General:

Troubleshooting

Repositories are not detected

1. Check the backslashes. settings.json needs escaped backslashes ("C:\\Projects"); the Settings UI needs single ones (C:\Projects).
2. Raise maxDepthRecursion if your repositories sit more than 4 levels below the base folder.
3. Check ignoredFolders does not match the folders you expect.
4. Run Lemari: Refresh Projects.

WSL repositories are not detected

1. Check the backslashes. settings.json needs "\\\\wsl.localhost\\Ubuntu\\..."; the Settings UI needs \\wsl.localhost\Ubuntu\....
2. Check security.allowedUNCHosts. It must contain wsl.localhost (or wsl$, whichever your paths use) in the Default profile's settings.json. The extension adds it for you; a copy only in a custom profile is not enough.
3. Restart VS Code after the host is added. A window reload sometimes is not.
4. Make sure WSL is running, for example by opening a WSL terminal, so \\wsl.localhost is reachable.
5. Raise maxDepthRecursion if your repositories sit more than 4 levels below the base folder.
6. Run Lemari: Refresh Projects.

Coming from the original Project Manager

• Favorites are stored separately. Copy projects.json from the original extension's global storage folder (alefragnani.project-manager) into this one's (exeltarkus.lemari), or point lemari.projectsLocation at the folder that already holds it.
• Earlier local build. If you installed a build with the ID exeldtarkus.easy-manager-projects, exeltarkus.easy-manager-projects or exeltarkus.easy-projects-manager, copy projects.json from that extension's global storage folder into the exeltarkus.lemari folder, then uninstall the old build.
• Settings are renamed. Replace the projectManager. prefix with lemari. in your settings.json.
• Upgrading from 1.10.x or earlier. From 1.11.0 settings and commands use lemari.* instead of easyManagerProjects.*, and the old keys are no longer read. Rename them in your settings.json, and in keybindings.json for any command IDs.
• Remote extension kind. Do not set remote.extensionKind to workspace for exeltarkus.lemari. The extension has to run on the local (Windows) side to switch between WSL and Windows, so running it inside the remote turns those features off. Favorites for Containers, SSH, WSL or Codespaces still work from the local side and open the remote when picked.

Extension API

Other extensions can save projects through the public API. Declare the dependency:

"extensionDependencies": [
    "exeltarkus.lemari"
]

Then use the exports:

import { ProjectManagerPublicApi } from './api/projectManager/api';

async function useProjectManagerApi() {
    const projectManagerApi = <ProjectManagerPublicApi>vscode.extensions.getExtension('exeltarkus.lemari')?.exports;

    await projectManagerApi.saveProject("My Project", "/path/to/project", ["work"], "Default");
}

The contract is in api/api.d.ts. See also the VS Code extensions API.

Credits & origin

Lemari is a fork of Project Manager 13.1.1 by Alessandro Fragnani. The core of this extension (saved projects, auto-detection, tags, the Side Bar, the Status Bar and the API) is his work, and all credit for it goes to him. This fork adds the two-line grouped list, saving with tags and icon in one flow, the folder dialogs for favorites and Git base folders, WSL and Windows switching, and the other changes listed in CHANGELOG.md, which also keeps the history of the original project.

If the original helps you, consider supporting it with Lemari: Support the Original Project Manager.

License

GPL-3.0 with VS Code Extension Host API Exception © Alessandro Fragnani (original Project Manager). Fork maintained by exeldtarkus.