Rajeev Pentyala – Technical Blog on Power Platform, Azure and AI

By default, VS Code opens the terminal in a panel at the bottom of the screen. Do you find it a bit cramped?

Did you know you can open the terminal as a tab in the Editor Area — just like your code files — giving you much more space to work with?

Let me show you how to do it, and also how to set up a handy keyboard shortcut!

Open a New Terminal as an Editor Tab:

• Open the Command Palette by pressing Ctrl + Shift + P, then search for:

Terminal: Create New Terminal in Editor Area

• Select it, and your terminal will now open as a tab in the Editor Area!

Set Up a Keyboard Shortcut:

Running through the Command Palette every time is a bit tedious. Let’s set up a keyboard shortcut instead.

• In the Command Palette result for “Terminal: Create New Terminal in Editor Area”, click the gear icon ⚙️ on the right.

• Click the + (Add Keybinding) button next to the command.

• A prompt will appear asking you to press your desired key combination. In this example, I gave nt as my short cut denotes ‘new tab’

• Hit Enter.
• Your shortcut is now saved! You’ll see it listed under the Keybinding column.

• I went ahead pressed nt three times and three new terminals opened as tabs.

🙂