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#2557 - Settings Keybinding.md

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Carlos Zamora @carlos-zamora
2020-05-14
2020-05-14

Open Settings Keybinding

Abstract

This spec outlines an expansion to the existing openSettings keybinding.

Inspiration

As a Settings UI becomes more of a reality, the behavior of this keybinding will be expanded on to better interact with the UI. Prior to a Settings UI, there was only one concept of the modifiable user settings: settings.json.

Once the Settings UI is created, we can expect users to want to access the following scenarios:

  • Settings UI: globals page
  • Settings UI: profiles page
  • Settings UI: color schemes page
  • Settings UI: keybindings page
  • settings.json
  • defaults.json These are provided as non-comprehensive examples of pages that might be in a future Settings UI. The rest of the doc assumes these are the pages in the Settings UI.

Solution Design

Originally, #2557 was intended to allow for a keybinding arg to access defaults.json. I imagined a keybinding arg such as "openDefaults: true/false" to accomplish this. However, this is not expandable in the following scenarios:

  • what if we decide to create more settings files in the future? (i.e. themes.json, extensions.json, etc...)
  • when the Settings UI comes in, there is ambiguity as to what openSettings does (json? UI? Which page?)

Proposition 1.1: the minimal target arg

Instead, what if we introduced a new target keybinding argument, that could be used as follows:

Keybinding Command Behavior
"command": { "action": "openSettings", "target": "settingsFile" } opens "settings.json" in your default text editor
"command": { "action": "openSettings", "target": "defaultsFile" } opens "defaults.json" in your default text editor
"command": { "action": "openSettings", "target": "allSettingsFiles" } opens all of settings files in your default text editor
"command": { "action": "openSettings", "target": "settingsUI" } opens the Settings UI

This was based on Proposition 1 below, but reduced the overhead of people able to define specific pages to go to.

Other options we considered were...

Proposition 1: the target arg

We considered making target be more specific like this:

Keybinding Command Behavior
"command": { "action": "openSettings", "target": "settingsFile" } opens "settings.json" in your default text editor
"command": { "action": "openSettings", "target": "defaultsFile" } opens "defaults.json" in your default text editor
"command": { "action": "openSettings", "target": "uiSettings" } opens the Settings UI
"command": { "action": "openSettings", "target": "uiGlobals" } opens the Settings UI to the Globals page
"command": { "action": "openSettings", "target": "uiProfiles" } opens the Settings UI to the Profiles page
"command": { "action": "openSettings", "target": "uiColorSchemes" } opens the Settings UI to the Color Schemes page

If the Settings UI does not have a home page, uiGlobals and uiSettings will do the same thing.

This provides the user with more flexibility to decide what settings page to open and how to access it.

Proposition 2: the format and page args

Another approach would be to break up target into format and page.

format would be either json or ui, dictating how you can access the setting. page would be any of the categories we have for settings: settings, defaults, globals, profiles, etc...

This could look like this:

Keybinding Command Behavior
"command": { "action": "openSettings", "format": "json", "page": "settings" } opens "settings.json" in your default text editor
"command": { "action": "openSettings", "format": "json", "page": "defaults" } opens "defaults.json" in your default text editor
"command": { "action": "openSettings", "format": "ui", "page": "settings" } opens the Settings UI
"command": { "action": "openSettings", "format": "ui", "page": "globals" } opens the Settings UI to the Globals page
"command": { "action": "openSettings", "format": "ui", "page": "profiles" } opens the Settings UI to the Profiles page
"command": { "action": "openSettings", "format": "ui", "page": "colorSchemes" } opens the Settings UI to the Color Schemes page

The tricky thing for this approach is, what do we do in the following scenario:

{ "command": { "action": "openSettings", "format": "json", "page": "colorSchemes" } }

In situations like this, where the user wants a json format, but chooses a page that is a part of a larger settings file, I propose we simply open settings.json (or whichever file contains the settings for the desired feature).

Proposition 3: minimal approach

What if we don't need to care about the page, and we really just cared about the format: UI vs json? Then, we still need a way to represent opening defaults.json. We could simplify Proposition 2 to be as follows:

  • format: json, ui
  • page openDefaults: true, false

Here, we take away the ability to specifically choose which page the user wants to open, but the result looks much cleaner.

If there are concerns about adding more settings files in the future, openDefaults could be renamed to be target, and this would still serve as a hybrid of Proposition 1 and 2, with less possible options.

UI/UX Design

The user has full control over modifying and adding these keybindings.

However, the question arises for what the default experience should be. I propose the following: | Keychord | Behavior | | ctrl+, | Open settings.json | | ctrl+alt+, | Open defaults.json |

When the Settings UI gets added in, they will be updated to open their respective pages in the Settings UI.

Capabilities

Accessibility

None.

Security

None.

Reliability

None.

Compatibility

Users that expect a json file to open would have to update their keybinding to do so.

Performance, Power, and Efficiency

Potential Issues

None.

Future considerations

When the Settings UI becomes available, a new value for target of settingsUI will be added and it will become the default target.

If the community finds value in opening to a specific page of the Settings UI, target will be responsible for providing that functionality.

Resources

None.