As suspected, by me at least, the more I use Microsoft Visual Studio Code, the more I’m going to want to modify it. Remember, I just came into the light with the recent addition of Region support in version 1.17. This desire to modify is no more true than seen in an edit I made today to the keybindings.json file. This file allows one to override the default keyboard shortcuts in order to implement “advanced customizations.” It’s pretty awesome, and well appreciated.

Today I added the section for the Ctrl + M keyboard combination, such as can be seen in the last, or third, section of the below JSON. What’s this do, right? If we think back to the ISE (Microsoft’s Integrated Scripting Environment) you may remember that Ctrl + M collapsed all collapsible sections in the current script, or function. With this change in Visual Studio Code, I can now continue to use Ctrl + M to quickly collapse all the sections in my active function, or script. This is until I realize what the default action of Ctrl + M — Toggle Tab Key Moves Focus — actually does, and I find it necessary. I do want to mention, that I could’ve just went with the new keyboard combination of Ctrl + K Ctrl + 0. Ugh, no thanks for now.

[
    { "key": "ctrl+`",      "command": "workbench.action.terminal.focus",
                               "when": "!terminalFocus"},
    { "key": "ctrl+`",      "command": "workbench.action.focusActiveEditorGroup",
                               "when": "terminalFocus"},
    { "key": "ctrl+m",      "command": "editor.foldAll",
                               "when": "editorTextFocus"} 
]

While we’re here, I might as well mention (a.k.a. help myself remember), what the first two sections in my keybindings.json file do, as well. These allow me to use Ctrl + ` to switch focus between the editor on top, where I write my code, and the terminal below, where I can run PowerShell commands interactively. While that’s all for this post, I won’t be surprised if I’m back here updating it with new additions I make to my keybindings.json file.

As a newbie to Visual Studio Code for PowerShell development, I already don’t like even seeing the ISE. It’s pretty amazing what Region support in Visual Studio Code did to me.