How do you launch your coding projects?

If you are dealing with lots of coding projects and often switch between them on a daily basis, you might want to come up with a solid strategy to launch them effortlessly and quickly.

Do you open them via terminal, by typing something like code ., do you open VS Code first and then use Project Manager extension, or do you use some other technique that you find to be easy to use and time-saving?

Comments

[Michael Currin]

Do you mean code . instead?

Single project

I keep a terminal open in my ~/repos directory and then use code my-project to open it.

Sometimes I use the File / Open flow in VS Code.

Often just selecting from File / Recently Open projects or from the welcome screen (with no project open).

I have Project Manager and Git Project Manager installed but don't use either.

I just setup the latter.

{
    "gitProjectManager.baseProjectsFolders": [
        "~/repos/"
    ],
}

And now using the command prompt I can search for repos and filter by typing. It even picks up what is in my _static_sites subfolder.

Multiple projects

If I need to work on multiple projects at once, I often open to windows. If you drag or copy and paste a folder or file, you can move them across projects easily (like when using one of my templates to setup a new project).

Sometime I will add a selection of 2 or 3 repos all open in the same VS Code window using File / "Add folder to workspace...". I don't use that much.

I have sometimes opened the entire ~/repos directory in VS Code so I can see all my repos at once. But it adds lot of overhead of processing and stuff I don't need as VS Code starts indexing things, trying to run git diff on them all etc.

[Madza]

Oh, yeah! A good eye, just fixed that 😉
Thanks for the extended insight 🙏❤ I imagine these would work especially good on a multiple monitor set-up, like terminal on one, code editor on another, and browser on a third 😉

[Heiker]

How do I start projects? The only way I know: through a series of convoluted scripts. It's just two scripts really, got one to setup the development environment and another to setup tmux and neovim.

My work day start when I run this command.

z w && task begin && ts work

• z w Gets me to the directory where the project is.
• task begin coordinates the scripts.
• ts work attach the tmux session with the name work.

[Akhyar]

There's some cd util for bash on github, search for commacd. It so useful for directory movement through terminal. Then when on project dir, just use sublime ..

[Madza]

This is nice, definitely a productivity booster! 👍

[Louis Low]

I am more comfortable open a new Terminal, navigate to the project directory, and then launch the IDE (IDE is configured to launch at a separate window). Even though I arrange the Terminal and File Explorer (nautilus) icons close together in the launcher bar 🤭

[mafflerbach]

I'm coding in vim, so naturally i will open them in the terminal. I am a linux user as well, and there is a scriptable launcher called rofi This scipt presents me all the folders in my development dir, and via fuzzy search it will open the selected one in vim.

But this script should be adaptable for any other IDE which supports open directories:

#!/bin/zsh

FQSN=`ls -1 /home/maren/development | rofi -dmenu -theme ~/dotfiles/i3/rofi.rasi ` 
cd ~/development/$FQSN
vim

[Gary Bell]

For small projects, I will attach multiple to a single instance of whichever JetBrains IDE is relevant for the project. If it's larger projects, I'll have a couple instances of the IDE running, or will avoid context switching and complete a task, change projects, and work from there.

My work laptop is pretty fast (even if it's always at a minimum of 90% memory use - usually closer to 98%), so there's no real issue between closing and loading a new project for me.

[Chris Partridge]

Working across 15+ active projects, I setup work spaces in VS Code and switch between them with Ctrl+R. Sometimes I'll Ctrl+N and Ctrl+R if I want multiple projects open at once.

Ctrl+J will give me a terminal in the workspace directory, and Ctrl+P to swap between files in the work space.

[Madza]

An awesome tip 🙏❤ I might try it to see if it works for my workflow 😉

[Tomi Adenekan]

I open vscode and hope I am on the right project 🙏🙏.

[Marian]

I just use Command+O in VS Code (Open Folder).

Looks like I might learn something new today. :)

[Junxiao Shi]

I right-click the Visual Studio Code icon on the Taskbar, and select a recent workspace.

If the workspace isn't in the recent list,

• for a local folder, I find the folder in File Explorer, and select Open with Code in the context menu;
• for a remote folder, I launch Visual Studio Code first, and then proceed as if I'm opening it for the first time.