Hirerarchical multi-root layout

Currently, the ‘folders’ field of a .code-workspace configuration file is an array of items, each of them defining a folder. Then, all of these are shown as level-1 items in the default File Explorer. I suggest to support nesting ‘folder’ items with arrays, which will be layout as level-1, level-2, level-3, etc. For example:

{
  "folders": [
    {
      "name": "Project A",
      "folders": [
        {
          "path": "prjA/dirA",
          "name": "Dir A"
        },
        {
          "path": "prjA/dirB",
          "name": "Dir B"
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "name": "Project B",
      "folders": [
        {
          "path": "prjB/frontend/src",
          "name": "Frontend"
        }
        {
          "name": "Backend",
          "folders": [
            {
              "path": "prjB/api",
              "name": "API"
            },
            {
              "path": "prjB/lib/src",
              "name": "Library"
            }
          ]
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "path": "common",
      "name": "Common"
    }
  ]
}

which would translate to the following File Explorer structure:

- Project A
  - Dir A (prjA/dirA)
  - Dir B (prjA/dirB)
- Project B
  - Frontend (prjB/frontend/src)
  - Backend
    - API (prjB/api)
    - Library (prjB/lib/src)
- Common (common)

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Related to #74229, I believe that the most straighforward integration with this feature would be an option in the settings to display each level-1 item in a separate File Explorer View.

Alternatively, a group field can be added to each item defined in the multi-root configuration file (be it a folder or an array). All the items with the same group identifier belong to a separate TreeView.

Ref #76902.

---

Related to #76399, the group concept above would translate to an Editor Group. Hence, the shown tabs in a given Editor Group will depend on the ‘location’ (‘group’) of the currently active document.

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Ref #31308. Ref #43188. Ref #73312. Ref #76891.

[vscodebot[bot]]

🙂 This feature request received a sufficient number of community upvotes and we moved it to our backlog. To learn more about how we handle feature requests, please see our documentation.

Happy Coding!

[markm77]

I’ve upvoted as similar to https://github.com/microsoft/vscode/issues/87887 but really hope this could be complemented by repo auto-mapping where repo (folder) locations in a workspace are auto-detected on launch and no fixed mapping needs to be maintained. See https://github.com/microsoft/vscode/issues/87888 and please consider upvoting this.😀