Setting for new window behavior in relation with what profile will be used

[alefteris]

Currently if a vscode window is open with profile Foo active and then I open a new vscode window, the new window will use also the profile Foo.

It would be nice to make this behavior customizable so that I can choose to open new windows with the Default profile always. This should affect only new empty windows or new windows with a workspace that has no associated profile already.

The available options for this setting could be something like:

Profile used for new windows

• Use last used profile (current behavior)
• Use default profile (new option)

Current workarounds are:

• Choose the default Profile manually in the new window
• Launch the new window from the terminal using code --profile "Default"
• Customize the vscode launch icon of the OS to apply the --profile "Default option. This can be tricky and it might get overwritten with an app update.

A related feature request that I found is #184594. It asks for a way to open a new window with a specific profile, using the Command Palette. If this is implemented it would provide another way to switch to the default profile. But I still think it would be nice to make the new window behavior customizable with this new setting.

Thanks

Using VS Code:
Version: 1.82.2
Commit: abd2f3d
Date: 2023-09-14T05:51:20.981Z
Electron: 25.8.1
ElectronBuildId: 23779380
Chromium: 114.0.5735.289
Node.js: 18.15.0
V8: 11.4.183.29-electron.0
OS: Linux x64 6.2.0-33-generic

[gjsjohnmurray]

See also #181677 (comment)

[sandy081]

/duplicate

[vscodenpa]

Thanks for creating this issue! We figured it's covering the same as another one we already have. Thus, we closed this one as a duplicate. You can search for similar existing issues. See also our issue reporting guidelines.

Happy Coding!

[alefteris]

@sandy081 Could you please link the duplicate issue here, so that I can track it? Thanks.

[sandy081]

#181677

[alefteris]

@sandy081 Could you please reconsider that this is a duplicate?

#181677 is requesting to use a custom profile as the default profile.

This ticket is requesting to have a setting for whether the default profile is used when opening a new vscode window or not. Let me try to explain the issue I'm having:

1. No vscode instance running
2. I start new vscode instance with no workspace. It uses the default profile as it should.
3. I load a workspace that has an associated profile with it or I could just select a custom profile for it for the first time, for example Python profile.
4. I create a new vscode window.
5. New vscode window is using the Python profile from step 3.

Current issue requests to make the step 5 behavior configurable so that I can choose to have new instances/windows opened with the default profile, not the last used profile.

[sandy081]

May I know if this is similar to what you requested - #176132

[alefteris]

@sandy081 It's related, but not what the current issue is about, which is providing a choice.

From what I can understand, #176132 is reporting that in some cases the default profile is used for new windows, instead of the last used one (the current behavior).

I think that because of different use cases, people might want to prefer one way or the other.

Some people might prefer the current behavior where the last used profile is used for new windows because they work on multiple workspaces that use the same profile. For example, they have a React profile and because most of the projects they work on use react, they would like new windows to open with the React profile. Or they have a profile per machine and always want to use the specific machine profile in that machine.

But in my case (and hope other people), have a different workflow and use a profile per project and not a generic "language profile" or "machine profile". In this case, when I open a new window, it's not useful to have the last project profile active, because I'll be working on something else. So I would prefer if new windows always used the default profile. Or better make this customizable with a setting, which is what the current issue is requesting.

Please let me know if I should explain further and thanks for reconsidering :)