Separate "user terminals" from non-user terminals

[anthonyvdotbe]

Typically I have 1 to 3 terminals that I work with. However, extensions such as PowerShell and Maven for Java also create terminals of their own.

In the case of PowerShell, 1 terminal is created, in order to provide autocompletion etc. for PowerShell files. However, I don't ever want to use that terminal for anything myself (because it doesn't work the same as a PowerShell terminal that I create myself).

In the case of Maven for Java, 1 terminal is created per Maven project. However, since each terminal is created at the time of first running a command, they mingle with "my" terminals (i.e. the ones that I explicitly created & work with).

So what I would like, is for VS Code to make a clear separation between the terminals I work with, and any other auxiliary terminals created by extensions.

There are many ways to go about this, but I propose the following:

• the terminals are ordered as follows: [user1, user2, user3, auto3, auto2, auto1]. So when I explicitly create a terminal, it is appended to the end of the list of "user terminals". And when an extension creates a terminal, it is prepended to the list of "extension terminals" (motivation: for such terminals I always want to have the most recently created terminals closest)
• workbench.action.terminal.focusPrevious and ...focusNext skip any non-user terminals, so that I can still easily cycle through my terminals
• non-user terminals are read-only by default, since I seldom, if ever, want to work in a terminal that was created by an extension

[vscodebot]

(Experimental duplicate detection)
Thanks for submitting this issue. Please also check if it is already covered by an existing one, like:

• I want to choose terminal when I open a new terminal (#57874)
• Multiple Terminal Options in UI (#57970)
• Terminal exited with code 1 (#85561)
• Want New Terminal Dropdown Menu like the new Windows Terminal for fast selecting (#76640)
• Create shortcut key to switch between terminals in vs code. (#37937)

[Tyriar]

We can't really make a judgement about what a "user" terminal is though since extensions can create terminals that you would use just like any other (eg. https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=Tyriar.shell-launcher). Are extensions misbehaving by showing you these terminals? I haven't used the PS extension much and the Maven one at all, but extensions can create backgrounded terminals and only surface them in the UI when the user requests them via the TerminalOptions.hideFromUser API.

[anthonyvdotbe]

With "user terminal" I mean: any terminal that I open myself. Admittedly, I hadn't thought of the kind of extensions such as your Shell launcher, which would indeed classify as user terminals as well.

They're not misbehaving per se, but they:

• open terminals that I don't want to use
  If I understand you correctly, this can be solved by having the extensions use the TerminalOptions.hideFromUser API
• simply append their terminals, so that they mingle with my "user terminals" over time
  Since "user terminal" isn't a usable definition, an alternative would be: having the ability to reorder terminals and/or pin them to the beginning of the list. So I guess what I'm really asking here is Tabs for integrated terminal #10546. Or even better: Use Windows Terminal as the built-in Terminal if it's installed #79211, where the Windows Terminal would be a new item in the Problems/Output/Debug console/Terminal list. So then extensions would keep using Terminal, while I'd use the Windows Terminal for all "my" terminals.

So if PowerShell/vscode-powershell#2434 is already solvable with existing API, this issue can be closed and I'll wait for tabs or Windows Terminal integration.

[Tyriar]

You can always hook up windows terminal as your "external terminal" to make launching it easier (windowsExec setting), integration with VS Code isn't as good obviously though.

Closing in favor of PowerShell/vscode-powershell#2434