Add a Permanently Visible Command Palette in VS Code

The May 2022 patch notes for VS Code mention the Command Center.

This is basically a permanently visible command palette embedded in the title bar.

For those who regularly use VS Code and use the command palette instead of keyboard shortcuts, you are constantly triggering the command palette and entering commands.

While it is easy to trigger the command palette with a keyboard shortcut, the Command Center gives you a visual element that you can click on instead of the keyboard shortcut. This might help new users get accustomed to the concept of a command palette.

The Command Center can be activated with this preference:

"window.experimental.commandCenter": true

The command center also requires both the title bar style be set to custom and an application restart:

"window.titleBarStyle": "custom"

Note that the command center differs slightly from the command palette. When you trigger the command palette, the prompt is automatically populated with the > symbol which filters the search results and shows only commands. The command center does not automatically provide > But you can type > to get the same suggestions the command palette would provide.

If you want to trigger the command center instead of the command palette, the default keyboard shortcut on Linux is Ctrl+P.

References

May 2022 Patch Notes | VS Code

Created: Tuesday, June 14, 2022

Updated: Tuesday, June 14, 2022