Unable to create when condition for pin/unpin editor

[Dimfred]

Hey I am trying to create the pin / unpin logic, like with the toggle project tree example in the docs, but I can't make it work. Do you have any suggestions?

{
    "key": "p",
    "name": "Pin / Unpin editor",
    "type": "conditional",
    "bindings": [
        {
            "key": "",
            "name": "default",
            "type": "command",
            "command": "workbench.action.pinEditor",
        },
        {
            "key": "when:activeEditorIsPinned",
            "name": "Unpin Editor",
            "type": "command",
            "command": "workbench.action.unpinEditor",
        },
    ]
}

[stevenguh]

You will need to add the following to you shortcut (keybindings.json).

{
	"key": "p",
	"command": "whichkey.triggerKey",
	"args": {
		"key": "p",
		"when": "activeEditorIsPinned"
	},
	"when": "whichkeyVisible && activeEditorIsPinned"
}

We can also choose to bundle this as default so we don't have two separate key for pin and unpin.

---

Just tested this and apparently, the activeEditorIsPinned context is unset once the focus exited the editor. So which-key can't the shortcut isn't being triggered (hence, not able to pass the when condition to which-key) when the menu is in focus.

Unfortunately, this is limit of the hack we have to capture context. Either vscode keep activeEditorIsPinned set or provide a getContext API; otherwise, this is something that we can't do atm.

[Dimfred]

Ah that is very sad. But thank you for the investigation, hope there something will happen soon, would be great to have that.

EDIT:
So I had some time and tinkered a bit around and got a hack for that. It basically uses xdotool to send a key, and that key represents the two toggle states.

keybindings.json:

{
    "key": "f5",
    "command": "workbench.action.pinEditor",
    "when": "!activeEditorIsPinned",
},
{
    "key": "f5",
    "command": "workbench.action.unpinEditor",
    "when": "activeEditorIsPinned",
},

settings.json:

{
    "key": "p",
    "name": "Pin/Unpin editor",
    "type": "command",
    "command": "workbench.action.terminal.sendSequence",
    // without cleaning
    "args": { "text": "i;xdotool key F5\n"},
    // with cleaning
    "args": { "text": "i;xdotool key F5;xdotool key Escape;clear\n"},
},

the ;i is only to leave the normal mode of my zsh. I also bound i() { return 0 } just to not get an error in zshrc.
I would also like the command to be executed in the background without showing it in the terminal history, but not sure whether this is possible.

[stevenguh]

I am glad you are able to find a workaround.

I looked at the vscode api it doesn't seem like they provide anything to extension to know if the editor is pinned. To properly support this, we likely need to do a feature request to vscode for either

• Have programmatic access to the editor pinned state
• Add toggle command to toggle between pin and unpin

[Dimfred]

Yeah I think the second option is something they will do. If I have time I probably willl open an issue and request a unified command.