video of the extension in action https://github.com/artkalev/hppcppviewer

When working on C++ projects I usually prefer to open both the header and implementation (.hpp and .cpp) side by side, with the header being on the left and implementation on the right.

This way I always have quick access to modify either one of them and a constant overview of the header while working on implementation.

After a while I started to feel like too much time was being spent on setting up the split view each time. And the default panel behaviour lead to always having 20+ tabs open on each side.

This is why I decided to try out creating a VSCode extension for the first time to make this small thing a bit easier for myself.

The logic flow of the extension is straightforward:

  1. Click a file (.hpp or .cpp)
  2. Find if it has the corresponding file
  3. Create the split view panel
  4. Open the .hpp on the left and .cpp on the right

That’s it. I only cared about this specific flow so the whole extension code is very small: under 100 lines.

I will be using this extension on my c++ projects going forward. Its too barebones for now to release it to the extension store. If there is wider interest for this kind of extension I will polish and publish it in the future.

Anyway, the current vsix package is up on my github repo releases: https://github.com/artkalev/hppcppviewer/releases/tag/v0.5.0-alpha