Document "how this works", please?

[ajvincent]

Question

The DEVELOPERS.md page could use a section describing how this extension actually achieves its filtering.

For instance, when playing with the settings, I saw there was a "files.exclude" setting. If I knew how the actual filtering is done, I could write a patch supporting a "files.include" setting, to follow the rules: (1) if a file matches the files.include setting, show it, (2) else if a file matches the files.exclude settings or the checked filters, exclude it, (3) else show the file.

[manifestinteractive]

Thanks for the question 👍🏽

files.exclude is not a setting my extension introduces, it is a Native VS Code Setting. All this extension is doing is giving VS Code users a visual panel to manage this native setting.

Adding a "files.include" won't really do anything in this case, as that logic, as mentioned, is not part of this extension. VS Code is 100% responsible for handling this, and just uses the files.exclude setting as the rules to use. This extension helps manage that specific setting, even creating a backup property so users can temporarily disable the setting for testing stuff out without deleting it, but at the end of the day, what actually does the excluding is VS Code specifically using that files.exclude setting.

It's also entirely possible to just manually edit your settings ( either in your user, folder or workspace settings ) and just manage files.exclude without this extension, as it is not required to make that files.exclude work. This extension just makes it a little easier to "see" that list and manage it.