Hide/Show side editor in VS Code?

Question

I love the editor splitting in VS Code. But I'm also used to Xcode, where the Assistant Editor can be opened/closed, or rather hidden/shown, maintaining what it last showed. (okay technically that may not be true but just imagine it is, or just ignore that and move on with my actual question haha)

Could I possibly hide/show side editors without closing and then having to reopen all their tabs? Like say I have File A on the left and File B on the right and I want to focus on just A, so I want to hide B on the right but then be able to show it again without having to explicitly select File B and open it to the right?

Or the more complex and cooler use would be if I have Files A & B & C open in tabs on the left, and Files D & E & F & A (two instances of A, for good measure) on the right, and I want to hide the whole right panel and then with a single command show it again, without having to open those tabs?

"Hide all but currently focused editor" or something like that.

Does this exist?

Answer 1

You cannot completely hide other editor groups but you can come close by "minimizing" other editor groups with the unbound command workbench.action.minimizeOtherEditors

{
  "key": "alt+n",
  "command": "workbench.action.minimizeOtherEditors"
},

Once you minimize a group, clicking on it will maximize it (and minimize the others). View/Editor Layout/ Two Columns/Rows will normalize/even out the splits again. Or this command workbench.action.evenEditorWidths.

---

{
  "key": "alt+n",
  "command": "workbench.action.toggleEditorWidths"
},

will toggle between minimized editor group and evenly split groups.