Allow split terminal to inherit working directory from previous terminal

[octref]

Have an option to inherit previous session's directory, so when I'm splitting I always end up with two terminals of the same working directory. iTerm2 has this and is very useful:

[cedric05]

shall i work on it ?

[Tyriar]

@cedric05 I think this will need some ground work first to pull in the cwd in a nice way on all platforms which may be tricky.

[cedric05]

@Tyriar check this one
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/15939380/how-to-get-the-cwd-current-working-directory-from-a-nodejs-child-process-in-b

[cedric05]

for windows there is no straight forward solution.
https://stackoverflow.com/a/25853120/5313475

[octref]

I would find this really useful, as previously split terminal command splits at least for the same workspace. However that was gone in favor of split (in active workspace) two versions ago, which I don't find much useful.

Example: Let's say I have two workspace A/B.

• Open new Terminal, select A
• Split in A
• Somehow the split panel is on B

@Tyriar Is that intended?

[Tyriar]

@octref the default split action now lets you select the workspace, just like the default create terminal action:

[octref]

@Tyriar I'm more looking at the Split in active workspace one, because I don't want to do the selection when splitting each time. Currently the active workspace seems to be determined by the current open file. I would expect it to be determined by the terminal from which I'm splitting.

e.g.: If I have a terminal open on node-pty, splitting from it should always give me a terminal at the root of node-pty, no matter which file I'm on.

[Tyriar]

@octref yeah that's what this feature request is about, right?

[octref]

@Tyriar Sorry, just found myself repeating myself unknowingly 😅

[Tyriar]

After chatting with @octref I found what would solve his problem is splitting taking the initialCwd of the terminal being split. This is so when in a multi-root workspace it won't show the popup. I propose we add a setting of the form:

terminal.integrated.splitCwd: 'choose' | 'initialCwd';

choose would be the current behavior, initialCwd would use the cwd of the terminal being split. Note that this is a string setting not a boolean to allow mac/linux to support the actual cwd in the future (doesn't appear to be possible without hacks on Windows). Also I didn't give the setting name/values much time, we can probably come up with better names.

[alexr00]

@Tyriar, just want to make sure I understand: initialCwd on Windows wouldn't do anything?

[Tyriar]

@alexr00 initialCwd on Windows (and linux and mac) would use the initialCwd from the terminal being split:

https://github.com/Microsoft/vscode/blob/3ba326658d0dba29f238175fb79a6ddab08001af/src/vs/workbench/parts/terminal/electron-browser/terminalProcessManager.ts#L36

[Tyriar]

The follow up which we could do in October if you have time, would be to add a cwd option with the following behavior:

• Linux/macOS: Run lsof -p <pid> | grep cwd when a split happens to pull the cwd
• Windows: Fallback to initialCwd behavior (mention in setting doc)

[Tyriar]

@alexr00 I added a test plan item so we get better OS coverage for this one.