[remote] Prefer to open a file in an existing window even when that window is connected to a remote with that file opened

Does this issue occur when all extensions are disabled?: Yes

You open a project that has a .devcontainer folder, and vscode asks you to “reopen in devcontainer”, so you open the devcontainer.

You now have one vscode window of a project in a devcontainer.

Reproducing:

• You navigate to another application, such as file explorer or GitHub desktop and find a file in the project you’re working on, which exists in the devcontainer.

• You right click on the file, and you can choose an option in windows explorer to “Open with code” or in GitHub desktop “open in Visual Studio Code”.

It doesn’t matter which option you take, you click the menu item.

(I reckon it would also be an issue for just generally opening filetypes that have code as the default opener)

Behaviour:

vscode will now open this file in a brand new vscode window, outside of the devcontainer.

We think the preferred behaviour should be for vscode to detect that this file the user has requested to be opened exists in both the filesystem and in the open devcontainer, and translate that file path to devcontainer/WSL language and open it in the existing devcontainer/remote wsl window.

This is referenced in an issue here and I just wanted to check and see if this is expected or if it’s an actual bug.

[Soneji]

@ADustyOldMuffin would you be able to update the original post with my description here Let’s hope we can get 20 upvotes

[Soneji]

I think you misunderstand.

Let me write a flow for you to replicate/understand the issue: Setup:

• You open a project that has a .devcontainer folder, and vscode asks you to “reopen in devcontainer”, so you open the devcontainer.
• You now have one vscode window of a project in a devcontainer.

Reproducing:

• You navigate to another application, such as file explorer or GitHub desktop and find a file in the project you’re working on, which exists in the devcontainer.
• You right click on the file, and you can choose an option in windows explorer to “Open with code” or in GitHub desktop “open in Visual Studio Code”.
• It doesn’t matter which option you take, you click the menu item.
• (I reckon it would also be an issue for just generally opening filetypes that have code as the default opener)

Behaviour:

• vscode will now open this file in a brand new vscode window, outside of the devcontainer.
• We think the preferred behaviour should be for vscode to detect that this file the user has requested to be opened exists in both the filesystem and in the open devcontainer, and translate that file path to devcontainer/WSL language and open it in the existing devcontainer/remote wsl window.