Well yes, of course they all "can" be done by writing a shell script, the same way any text editing with vim "can" also be done using ed.

> VSCode is a very primitive text editor compared to vim, emacs or helix. You don't need to edit the command line right there in the shell prompt, nor do you need to create any files — press Ctrl+X + Ctrl+E and hack away. Save and close the file (ZZ in vim, for example), and it gets executed by the shell.

I actually use vscode with the vim extension. You seem to be assuming I am unfamiliar with vim and emacs, I can assure you I know them well enough (at least vim, I also am familiar with the overall features of emacs, though I lack the muscle memory to use it efficiently).

Here is an example: Let's say you have a file named `feature_experimental.cpp` now you want to remove the `_experimental.cpp` from all the files in the current directory which have `_experimental`. I assure you that I can do it faster using voil than you can with vanilla vscode.

You actually can depackage vscode's .vsix files (it is just a zip file) and compare the package contents to the repository.

1. There is no way that `touch newfile` is faster. Using voil, you press a keybind, enter `newfile`, save and you are done. Using touch you have to first, use some keybinding to switch to terminal, then type `touch ` (6 letter overhead) then type the name of the file and then switch back to vscode. I am not saying voil is meaningfully faster, but you saying that `touch newfile` is faster is wild to me.

2. If I am editing a comlpex file name I like having access to all the text editing features that I have in vscode as opposed to the barebones text editing features in the terminal.

3. There is also all the other moving/copying/renaming with visual feedback that you decided to completely ignore.

4. If touch was faster then oil.nvim would not have been such a popular extension. I am sure most vim users know how to use `touch`.

> nobody will do that

"nobody" is a strong word. Yes, most people don't do that, but if a single person reads the source code and finds something nefarious they can report it or leave a review disclosing that and my reputation would be ruined.

It is not easy to get verified in vscode marketplace, even major publishers like Qt organization are not verified much less so a solo open source developer like myself.

I kind of disagree? Most files were once created as an empty file! (at least that's the case in my workflow).

Also voil asks you to confirm destructive actions. And even if you do, by default voil moves deleted files to a trash location and has undo functionality so you can easily undo your mistakes.

- It can work across multiple vscode windows

- The top line (that shows the current directory) can be used to filter files. For example, if you add "*.{txt,md}" to the end of that line, it will only show the txt and markdown files.

- The ability to defined custom shell commands and bind keybindings to them. For example, I can create a command that zips selected files and run it with a single keybinding in voil.

- Undo functionality

The major difference being that you still need to learn some new keybinds for dired, for example, you can't just create a file by editing the text buffer whereas in oil.nvim (and by extension, voil) your text editing skills immediately apply.

It is way more than just DNS.

Some features:

* Create/rename/move/delete files by editing the current directory listing's textbuffer

* Filter using glob pattern

* Trash and undo support

* Works even in remote-ssh workspaces

* Works across multiple vscode windows

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44548630

Points: 67

# Comments: 46

Github Repository: https://github.com/ahrm/voil

Some ideas are so simple and natural, that you can't help but feel that they are discovered rather than invented. That's how I felt the first time I saw the oil.nvim plugin (https://github.com/stevearc/oil.nvim), using vscode without something like that was a pain afterwards, so I had to step in and imlpement it!