Vscode: Add a jump back command from goto definition

[Khady]

This is a feature request.

I'd like to have a command like workbench.action.navigateback but that would only take into account the go to/jump commands (go to definition, implementation, type definition, start of function, ...) and no cursor move.

For example, I could jump from a function call to the definition of the function, then move my cursor down three times. If I navigate back, my cursor will go up by one line. But instead I would like to jump back to the function definition and then to the function call.

[alexdima]

fyi @jrieken @bpasero

[ssoroka]

Yes please. Push/pop jump stack. :D

[coderjz]

+1 for this, I do this in vim all the time and in fact mapped them to j and k to to to definition and go back to definition respectively.

It's been frustrating that I'll do j, then navigate a little bit in the file, and then press k to navigate back but end up in the same file.

[intijk]

I see @bpasero made the decision to add the cursor move to history in this post
https://github.com/Microsoft/vscode/issues/11727

I would say we could provide different shortcut choice for cursor back and definition jump back, when definition jump back triggered, the interval cursor back option could be dropped.

Hi @bpasero could you tell me how to increase the history step buffer size to let me have a temporary solution for the same needs here? Thank you.

[ffledgling]

Do we have a follow up on this? This would allow native use for things like ctrl-] and ctrl-[ under Vim emulation as well.

[bpasero]

@alexandrudima fyi this would require a little bit more information in the ICursorPositionChangedEvent how it was triggered. Currently I see source: "api" which seems to be too generic. If there was more types how a change happened, we could start building a history only for that. It would also help me fix another issue where upon invoking "Find > Next" many times, lots of history locations are added even though the user did not explicitly jump using the mouse/keyboard.

[alexdima]

We could add source arguments to the editor.setSelection, editor.setSelections and editor.setPosition APIs. We could start with the current default, api, and work from there. I have already added the source argument to setSelections, but only in the CodeEditorWidget (and not in the ICodeEditor) for now.

So I guess the work to implement this feature request should consist also of finding such callers and annotating them with a good (or better than api) source.

[intijk]

Great to see the effort finally started after requested for a year :+1:

[intijk]

@bpasero Do we have any progress on this one? Keen to see it happen :disappointed_relieved:

[zofari]

I would like this too. I really don't understand why would anyone want to jump back to the last cursor point.. Might as well just provide a setting option so we can choose the desired behavior.

[intijk]

@zofari I agree with you , I rarely see any one really care cursor blink back.

Definition jump back is much more important feature, a fundamental feature in tools like ctags provided.

But the sad thing is, this ticket never get any importance since its creation after 22 months.

[abhyudayasrinet]

so I'm not sure how this works but I have a mouse with 5 buttons and I had set one of them to simulate a backspace/back click which would work with browsers and windows explorer. and in vscode if I ctrl+click on a function definition then click that mouse button it takes me back to exactly where I came from (across files as well)

[bakshizaki]

Would love to see this happen. This kind of navigation is essential to my workflow.

[Khady]

FTR I am using https://github.com/VSCodeVim/Vim almost only because they implemented this feature in the extension. vscode is unusable otherwise.

[bakshizaki]

FTR I am using https://github.com/VSCodeVim/Vim almost only because they implemented this feature in the extension. vscode is unusable otherwise.

Thanks, I didn't know VSCodeVim had that. Exactly what I was looking for.