Vscode: Sort extensions by extension update date

[janderudder]

It's in the title : I could use the possibility to browse installed extensions sorted by installation update date.

I often install a batch of extensions at a time, for a given language, or about a given feature. Some times I find unrelated extensions during the search and install them too.
So I restart the editor with a whole bunch of new extensions, and its behavior may be quite different compared to last reload.

I don't necessarily remember the names of all the newly installed extensions, and after restarting the editor sometimes I wish to go back to the extension read-me to see the how-to again, or just get the extension's name to use its commands.

When you have a lot of extensions installed it may be hard to browse through to find the new ones.
It would be nice to have a way to discriminate the latest installed extensions.

Thank you for this great editor anyway :)

[robertopc]

I want this feature too.

[cacheflow]

I'll take this.

[ramya-rao-a]

We do not store any data around install timestamps. All information we show around extensions are coming from the marketplace. We could use at the timestamps of the directory for the extension, but for every extension update, a new folder is created and the older one is deleted.

So there is no way at the moment to get the install date.

If anyone is really interested in getting a solution for this, they may try it via extensions. You could have an extension that watches the directory where the extensions are stored and keeps list of extensions and the first time they were installed. See https://aka.ms/vscodewritingextensions for getting started with extensions

[vscodebot[bot]]

We try to keep VS Code lean and we think the functionality you're asking for is great for a VS Code extension. Maybe you can already find one that suits you in the VS Code Marketplace. Just in case, in a few simple steps you can get started writing your own extension. See also our issue reporting guidelines.

Happy Coding!

[KillyMXI]

We could use at the timestamps of the directory for the extension, but for every extension update, a new folder is created and the older one is deleted.

In my ticket I was asking about install OR UPDATE dates, so this way, although shakey, would've worked for me fine.

Even sort by version update in Marketplace will be useful in some cases (more useful than outdated filter). Although it doesn't solve first install issue, it is useful with following updates.

[ramya-rao-a]

In my ticket I was asking about install OR UPDATE dates

Thanks for clarifying. That was not clear to me initially.
This does simplify things.

[KillyMXI]

Please note that my ticket is not this one (it was marked as duplicate of
this one despite being older).

(#40781 - I should've mentioned it in the first comment.)

It seems to me though that in janderudder's use case it will be equally useful too, be it install only date or install-or-update date that is used for sorting.

[ghost]

@KillyMXI I don't think janderudder was referring to the original date an extension was installed. Since every update requires an extension to be reinstalled, he was most likely asking for a way to organize the last date an extension was updated or installed for the first time. I mean, I don't think anyone would want to only keep track of when they first installed an extension.

Anyways, I really hope we get some sorting options for dates because figuring out the latest extension settings is a hassle.

[MeikTranel]

I would say (given the nature of the install/update process) showing installdate by listing the LastChanged-Date of the directory or the vsixmanifest would be sufficient information to support sorting without adding additional state to the extension directory

[janderudder]

@KillyMXI I don't think janderudder was referring to the original date an extension was installed.

Actually I was. I am not familiar with how VS Code extensions work. Anyway, the purpose of this feature, as I see it, would be to have a view of newest installed extensions so we can easily find the cause of a change in the UI for instance, after installing a bunch of extensions and not paying much attention to the names and details.

I guess it would cover this use case to sort extensions by update date, even better.

[ramya-rao-a]

Copying @MeikTranel's comment from #59315 as I think it provides yet another scenario where this feature is useful i.e reading of the changelog

As a user, who enjoys reading patch notes it'd be cool if there was a way to sort an extension by the date of the update/install. That way i can still use autoupdate and in the event of an error that suddenly erupts i could help extension authors by providing context, when the issues first appeared and if its correlating with the installation or update of an extension.

[MeikTranel]

Are we all agreeing that "updated date" is the most interesting detail, thus should be the focus of this issue?

If so we should be updating the title? Installation date isn't really capturing it then. That would reduce the number of duplicate issues.

[johanngerell]

Does anyone know if this issue is being looked into to get it forward? I really miss this feature, as it's impossible to discover new extensions in general and color themes in particular.

[MeikTranel]

I do think they still have this on their mind. The last two sprints were really "secretive" when it came to microsoft internal development on vscode.. the UI team was working intensively on the iconography relaunch, which is in preview right now. I assume since the overarching extension UI issue #68527 is still on the iteration plan that means we'll see movement soon.

[misolori]

@johanngerell yes, as @MeikTranel mentioned we have some explorations around updating our UI for extensions and are looking to enable sorting (see #68527). I'm hoping that after we update our iconography (#8017) that we'll be able to tackle this next.

[spartanatreyu]

Just going to copy my comment into this issue:

Something I've found missing from the current functionality that would be handy to have would be a way to order extensions by install date.

I installed the Trailing Spaces extension to highlight any random trailing spaces that have slipped into the code and it worked great, but randomly a few hours later I encountered a problem with it where it was incorrectly highlighting lines that were had no whitespace issues.

I went to the extensions pane to remove the extension and couldn't remember what it was called. I clicked on the menu button (three dots) in the extension pane, first to show only the installed extensions (which hides the pre-installed and recommended extensions), then again to sort by installation date.

Currently we have:

• Sort By: Install Count
• Sort By: Rating
• Sort By: Name

but no "Sort By: Install Date".

It was only a minor nuisance to re-read all of my installed extensions (25 of them, mainly language syntax support extensions) to find the misbehaving one but this would be a nice quality of life fix to add for devs that are trying new extensions

[RoestVrijStaal]

Any update about this feature request?

I'm fed up with checking manually the compatibility and vitality of each extension by browsing to its code repository and check on last commit date and its ticket handling.

Sorting (or even better: filtering) them would help me saving time on picking (working!) extensions.