Custom Quick Open
Custom Quick Open opens VS Code Quick Open with a useful prefilled query based on the current editor context.
It is intended as a smarter alternative to the regular Ctrl+P flow when the text you want to search for is already selected, under the cursor, or appears as a path-like token on the current line.
Behavior
When the command runs, it tries the following sources in order:
- The current selected text.
- A path-like token under the cursor.
- VS Code's normal word under the cursor.
- Normal Quick Open with no prefix.
Selection handling
If text is selected:
- The selected text is trimmed.
- If the trimmed text contains a newline, it is ignored.
- If the trimmed text is non-empty and single-line, it is used as the Quick Open query.
Examples accepted:
src/components/Button.tsx
Button.tsx
My Component
Examples ignored:
src/components/Button.tsx
src/components/Input.tsx
Multi-line selections are ignored because Quick Open expects a single query string.
If no usable selection exists, the extension tries to extract a path-like token from the current line.
The token is always extracted from the same line as the cursor. It never crosses line boundaries.
Environment detection
The extension always runs as a UI extension.
Path extraction mode is chosen using this logic:
| Condition |
Mode |
vscode.env.remoteName === "wsl" |
POSIX |
vscode.env.remoteName === "dev-container" |
POSIX |
vscode.env.remoteName === "attached-container" |
POSIX |
vscode.env.remoteName === "codespaces" |
POSIX |
| local Windows |
Windows |
| local non-Windows |
POSIX |
| other remote environments |
fallback to word under cursor |
Unknown remote environments, such as SSH remotes or tunnels, intentionally fall back to VS Code's normal word-under-cursor behavior because their filesystem path style is not guaranteed.
POSIX path tokens
POSIX mode uses / as the path separator.
Examples:
src/components/Button.tsx
src/My Component/Button.tsx
/home/or/project/src/file.ts
Windows path tokens
Windows mode supports either / or \, but rejects tokens that mix both separators.
Examples accepted:
src\components\Button.tsx
src/components/Button.tsx
C:\Users\Or\project\file.ts
C:/Users/Or/project/file.ts
Examples rejected as path tokens:
src/components\Button.tsx
C:\Users/Or/project/file.ts
Component rules
Path components may contain:
letters, digits, spaces, dots, underscores, hyphens
The components . and .. are rejected.
The extension intentionally does not use ./ or ../ prefixes because VS Code Quick Open usually matches workspace-relative paths, file names, or absolute path strings. In practice, prefixes such as ./ often make Quick Open matching worse.
Single-component tokens
Single-component unquoted tokens are handled conservatively because spaces make them ambiguous.
Accepted as path-like tokens:
Button.tsx
my-file
my_file
Rejected as path-like tokens:
My Component
some normal text
Quoted or backticked single-component tokens with spaces are accepted:
"My Component"
'My Component'
`My Component`
If no path-like token is found, the extension falls back to VS Code's normal word-under-cursor behavior.
Default shortcut
Windows/Linux:
Ctrl+K Ctrl+P
macOS:
Cmd+K Cmd+P
This is a key chord. Because it starts with Ctrl+K / Cmd+K, it may interfere with normal copy behavior. You can rebind the command from VS Code's Keyboard Shortcuts UI.
Command
customQuickOpen.open
Command title:
Custom Quick Open: Open from Selection or Token
Packaging
Install dependencies:
npm install
Package the extension:
npm run package
Install the generated VSIX:
code --install-extension custom-quick-open-1.0.0.vsix
Requirements
- VS Code
1.74.0 or newer.
- Node.js
20.0.0 or newer for local packaging/development.
Repository
GitHub repository
License
MIT.
See LICENSE for details.
Author
