Pandocs Extension
A VSCode extension that allows you to read documents from URLs directly within the editor. Perfect for quickly viewing web content, API responses, documentation, and more without leaving your development environment.
✨ Features
📄 Document Opening
- Open any URL and display its content in a VSCode tab
- Support for various file types (HTML, JSON, XML, text files)
- Smart HTML to Markdown conversion for better readability
- Clean content without CSS, JavaScript, or clutter
🎯 Smart Content Processing
- HTML Sanitization: Automatically removes scripts, styles, and unwanted elements
- Markdown Conversion: Converts HTML to clean, readable Markdown with proper syntax highlighting
- Content Type Detection: Automatically sets the correct language mode based on content
- Syntax Highlighting: Full support for Markdown, JSON, XML, JavaScript, and more
💡 User Experience
- Progress indicators during download
- Informative error messages with actionable feedback
- Network timeout handling
- HTTP error handling with status codes
🚀 Usage
Quick Start
- Open the Command Palette (
Ctrl+Shift+P or Cmd+Shift+P)
- Type "Pandocs: Open URL" and select the command
- Enter the URL of the document you want to open
- The document will be fetched and displayed in a new tab
Example URLs to Try
HTML Pages (converted to Markdown):
https://httpbin.org/html - Test HTML contenthttps://example.com - Simple webpagehttps://httpbin.org/forms/post - Form examples
API Responses (preserved format):
https://jsonplaceholder.typicode.com/posts/1 - JSON datahttps://httpbin.org/xml - XML contenthttps://api.github.com/users/microsoft - API response
| Format |
Processing |
Language Mode |
| HTML |
✅ Converted to Markdown |
markdown |
| JSON |
✅ Preserved |
json |
| XML |
✅ Preserved |
xml |
| JavaScript |
✅ Preserved |
javascript |
| Plain Text |
✅ Preserved |
plaintext |
⚙️ Requirements
- VSCode 1.74.0 or higher
- Internet connection to fetch remote documents
🔧 Extension Settings
This extension contributes the following settings:
pandocs.timeout: Request timeout in milliseconds (default: 30000)pandocs.maxFileSize: Maximum file size to fetch in bytes (default: 10485760)
🚀 Installation
From VSCode Marketplace (when published)
- Open VSCode
- Go to Extensions (Ctrl+Shift+X)
- Search for "Pandocs"
- Click Install
From VSIX File
- Download the
.vsix file
- Run:
code --install-extension pandocs.vsix
- Reload VSCode
Development Install
- Clone this repository
- Run
npm install
- Run
npm run compile
- Open in VSCode and press F5 to run in debug mode
🐛 Troubleshooting
Common Issues
Extension not working:
- Reload VSCode:
Ctrl+Shift+P → "Developer: Reload Window"
- Check if the command appears:
Ctrl+Shift+P → "Pandocs: Open URL"
Network errors:
- Check your internet connection
- Verify the URL is correct and accessible
- Some websites may block requests from non-browsers
Large files:
- Default max file size is 10MB
- Increase
pandocs.maxFileSize setting if needed
- Very large files may cause performance issues
HTML not displaying correctly:
- The extension converts HTML to Markdown for better readability
- Some complex layouts may not convert perfectly
- CSS styles are intentionally removed for clean content
📝 Release Notes
v0.1.0 - Current
- ✨ HTML to Markdown conversion with automatic sanitization
- 🧹 Content cleaning - removes CSS, JavaScript, and unwanted elements
- 🎯 Smart content type detection and language mode switching
- 📊 Progress indicators during document fetching
- 🛡️ Enhanced error handling with informative messages
- 🔧 Multiple format support (HTML, JSON, XML, JavaScript, text)
v0.0.1
- Initial release
- Basic URL opening functionality
- Support for HTML, JSON, XML, and text files
- Error handling and progress indicators
🤝 Contributing
We welcome contributions! Please feel free to submit a Pull Request. For major changes, please open an issue first to discuss what you would like to change.
Development Setup
# Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/quynhvo/pandocs.git
cd pandocs
# Install dependencies
npm install
# Compile TypeScript
npm run compile
# Run in debug mode
# Open in VSCode and press F5
📄 License
This project is licensed under the MIT License - see the LICENSE file for details.
📊 Stats
Made with ❤️ for developers who love clean, readable content
