Custom Quick Open

Custom Quick Open opens VS Code Quick Open with a useful prefilled query based on the current editor context.

It is intended as a smarter alternative to the regular Ctrl+P flow when the text you want to search for is already selected, under the cursor, or appears as a path-like token on the current line.

Behavior

When the command runs, it tries the following sources in order:

1. The current selected text.
2. A path-like token under the cursor.
3. VS Code's normal word under the cursor.
4. Normal Quick Open with no prefix.

Selection handling

If text is selected:

1. The selected text is trimmed.
2. If the trimmed text contains a newline, it is ignored.
3. If the trimmed text is non-empty and single-line, it is used as the Quick Open query.

Examples accepted:

src/components/Button.tsx
Button.tsx
My Component

Examples ignored:

src/components/Button.tsx
src/components/Input.tsx

Multi-line selections are ignored because Quick Open expects a single query string.

Path-token extraction

If no usable selection exists, the extension tries to extract a path-like token from the current line.

The token is always extracted from the same line as the cursor. It never crosses line boundaries.

Environment detection

The extension always runs as a UI extension.

Path extraction mode is chosen using this logic:

Unknown remote environments, such as SSH remotes or tunnels, intentionally fall back to VS Code's normal word-under-cursor behavior because their filesystem path style is not guaranteed.

POSIX path tokens

POSIX mode uses / as the path separator.

Examples:

src/components/Button.tsx
src/My Component/Button.tsx
/home/or/project/src/file.ts

Windows path tokens

Windows mode supports either / or \, but rejects tokens that mix both separators.

Examples accepted:

src\components\Button.tsx
src/components/Button.tsx
C:\Users\Or\project\file.ts
C:/Users/Or/project/file.ts

Examples rejected as path tokens:

src/components\Button.tsx
C:\Users/Or/project/file.ts

Component rules

Path components may contain:

letters, digits, spaces, dots, underscores, hyphens

The components . and .. are rejected.

The extension intentionally does not use ./ or ../ prefixes because VS Code Quick Open usually matches workspace-relative paths, file names, or absolute path strings. In practice, prefixes such as ./ often make Quick Open matching worse.

Single-component tokens

Single-component unquoted tokens are handled conservatively because spaces make them ambiguous.

Accepted as path-like tokens:

Button.tsx
my-file
my_file

Rejected as path-like tokens:

My Component
some normal text

Quoted or backticked single-component tokens with spaces are accepted:

"My Component"
'My Component'
`My Component`

If no path-like token is found, the extension falls back to VS Code's normal word-under-cursor behavior.

Default shortcut

Windows/Linux:

Ctrl+K Ctrl+P

macOS:

Cmd+K Cmd+P

This is a key chord. Because it starts with Ctrl+K / Cmd+K, it may interfere with normal copy behavior. You can rebind the command from VS Code's Keyboard Shortcuts UI.

Command

customQuickOpen.open

Command title:

Custom Quick Open: Open from Selection or Token

Packaging

Install dependencies:

npm install

Package the extension:

npm run package

Install the generated VSIX:

code --install-extension custom-quick-open-1.0.0.vsix

Requirements

• VS Code 1.74.0 or newer.
• Node.js 20.0.0 or newer for local packaging/development.

Repository

GitHub repository

License

MIT.
See LICENSE for details.

Author

• Name: Or Fadida
• Email: [email protected]
• GitHub: orfadida2000