Adds file comparison to the editor tab context menu, plus a Paste Compare panel for quickly diffing two pasted texts — no commands to type.
Features
1. Compare via tab context menu
- Right-click any editor tab → Select for Compare
- Right-click another tab → Compare with Selected to open the diff view
- Right-click any editor tab → Compare with Clipboard to diff that file against the clipboard
("Compare with Selected" only appears after a tab has been selected, matching the built-in Explorer behavior.)
2. Paste Compare
Click the ⇆ Paste Compare item in the status bar (bottom right) — an empty editable diff opens immediately. Paste one text into the left side, the other into the right side; differences highlight live as you paste or type.
The diff is backed by an in-memory file system (paste-compare: scheme): edits auto-save back to memory — no save prompts, no temp files on disk, no stray Untitled tabs. The language (JSON, YAML, XML/HTML, SQL, Python, shell, Markdown, JavaScript) is auto-detected as you paste and applied to both sides for syntax highlighting.
Development / Debugging
No dependencies to install. Open this folder in VS Code and press F5 to launch an Extension Development Host.
Packaging & Installing
npx @vscode/vsce package # produces a .vsix
code --install-extension compare-tabs-0.0.1.vsix
Related built-in features (no extension needed)
Compare Active File with Clipboard— current file vs clipboardCompare New Untitled Text Files— two blank editors to paste into manually