Profiles issue tracking

[sana-ajani]

After team discussion and brainstorming on this issue for user profiles #116740, we will try to break this down into a few parts:

1. Define UI layout, keybindings, settings, extensions as a Profile
2. Syncing profiles
3. Sharing profiles with others

We can track all the explorations and issues that relate to the above in this one list:

• ✅ Creating pre-defined layouts Allow extensions to contribute defaults for built in configurations #46851 - released in November. This can allow users to control and pre-determine settings they want to have as "defaults". Currently, Harvard CS50 uses a .devcontainer to outline these settings.

• 💪 Exploration: Setting visibility for views/view containers and context menu items Command to make activityBar, menuBar, and statusbar visible (or invisible), or determine their current state, not just toggle #133787 @sandy081

• 💪 Syncing multiple profiles Sync mutliple settings profiles #92393

[isnikulin]

Thank you for picking up this functionality at last!

[sana-ajani]

Hi folks! The Profiles experience is an on-going feature we're refining, and we will post more of our team's discussions and brainstorming around this for each iteration in this issue moving forward cc @sandy081

For June we are thinking about:

• Profiles management across windows or workspaces
  • Does it make sense to have Profiles per window rather than across multiple windows?
  • What's the experience when managing different Profiles in different windows?
  • Is there a use case for opening the same folder in different Profiles in different windows?
  • Should a workspace/folder remember the last Profile it was associated with?
• Preview or editing experience for Profiles
  • What is the experience for when you import a new Profile? Do you want to edit the Profile or see a preview of it first?
  • How can you trust this Profile and its contents?

[alefragnani]

That's great to hear, specially seeing a few features I think to be a must have

• Does it make sense to have Profiles per window rather than across multiple windows?

Per window, as I will be able to work with different stacks (each one with its on settings/extensions) at the same time

• What's the experience when managing different Profiles in different windows?

The user could have a default profile, and any new window will use it. If you open a folder with a Profile defined, apply it. In the end you may have (visually speaking) something like the Peacock extension presents :-)

• Is there a use case for opening the same folder in different Profiles in different windows?

Not for me, but I suppose VS Code have a limitation to be solved first (#2686)

• Should a workspace/folder remember the last Profile it was associated with?

For sure 😄

• What is the experience for when you import a new Profile? Do you want to edit the Profile or see a preview of it first?

While importing, no at all, because "in my case", I'm not so interested in UI settings. But I see value on it for other users so, it would be interesting to have, for sure

About editing, totally. I even opened a feature request (#148829) about it right after you first launched Profiles in Insiders, but it was closed as extension-candidate 😞. TBH, Forcing the development of a new extension simply because the team apparently forgot to use tabs and line breaks while saving the .code-profile file seems too much.

• How can you trust this Profile and its contents?

I understand it could work similar to Workspace Trust, since settings and extensions are handled there too

Looking forward to the next releases

[cutsin]

• Is there a use case for opening the same folder in different Profiles in different windows?

Yes, TypesScript project with monorepo, eg. react/deno's codes in one folder, they used different tsc