Visual Studio Code - custom run configs in toolbar?

This is a VS Code IDE question:

Can I somehow display the list of launch configs in the toolbar? I want to always show the explorer and I do NOT want to show launch configs somewhere in the window (I could do that by drag&drop the run & debug tab around) but to show the available run configs in the toolbar.

Is that somehow possible?

  • You can’t, but if you’re willing to sacrifice some horizontal screen space, you can create a secondary sidebar on the right side of the IDE and place the Run and Debug tab there.

    - In the menu bar, enable > View > Appearance > Secondary Side Bar

    - Drag the Run and Debug tab from the left sidebar to the right sidebar

  • I have seen that but I don't like it... It costs too much space. I would like to put it in the sidebar but "below" it like in Visual Studio e.g.:

    This is not possible, is it? You can split up the sidebars in top/bottom or similar?

  • No unfortunately not. You can drag the Run and Debug tab into the bottom panel, but I'm sure that's not what you're looking for either.

    As much as I like most of modern aspects of VS Code, it's also a lot simpler than VS (in most cases that's a good thing...)

    I did find an extension that adds a "quick run" panel to the Explorer pane - it should be right up your alley. You can drag the panel within the Explorer pane so that it appears anywhere you want in the order.

    [https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=davehart.quick-run-panel]

    I did notice it doesn't seem to work for multi-root workspaces :/. It's open-source, so maybe you can fix it.

    I have also seen a couple of extensions that add run/debug buttons to the editor actions bars (which appears in the tab bar or the title bar), but they don't let you select a launch configuration. Maybe it's possible to write a similar extension which does let you select a launch config.

  • that's a good find, I will test it

    I found solutions with css hacks of VSCode, shortcodes as alternatives for each run config but nothing as simple as the dropdown in VS...