Keyboard shortcut in VSCode for Markdown links?

Question

from other text editors I'm used to adding Markdown links by

selecting the word I want to be linked,
pressing cmd-K on my Mac's / iPad Pro's keyboard, which puts square brackets around the marked word, appends a pair of normal parenthesis () and places the cursor right in beetween those two parenthesis so that I can
just paste the URL I have in my clipboard into the right place by pressing cmd-V.

So, select -> cmd-K -> cmd-V is a nice and short sequence for adding links in a Markdown document and cmd-K has become some kind of pseudo standard for adding links in several writing apps.

However, in VSCode that's not possible. But I'd love to make it possible. Any ideas? cmd-K is (hard-wired?) bound to listen for a next key press. But it doesn't have to be cmd-K. I can learn another keystroke. But I need to be able to put additional text (square brackets and parenthesis) into the text and move the cursor to the right position. How's that done?

Thanks so much!

Mark · Accepted Answer · 2019-11-25 18:47:34Z

33

This extension Markdown All In One looks like it does what you want in one step.

Paste link on selected text

Just select your link and hit Ctrl+V and it creates the link and inserts the clipboard link.

If for some reason you don't want to use this extension, it would be pretty easy to create a snippet to do what you want.

edited Nov 25, 2019 at 18:47

answered Nov 25, 2019 at 16:54

Mark

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5 Comments

metawops Over a year ago

Heyyy, that's very nice and even shorter! How did you find out about that? It's not in the keyboard shortcuts tabel in the description of the extension! – I like especially that it intelligently checks whether the clipboard content is a URL and only then does this magic. Great!

metawops Over a year ago

Ah, found the aGIF you posted above in the extension's details! 🙂

Marco Lackovic Over a year ago

Markdown All In One is a good extension but sometimes interferes with my workflow: I wish there was a way to have the shortcut feature alone and not the rest. VsCode supports Markdown in many ways, I wonder why they have not implemented this basic thing natively.

Syed Ekram Uddin Over a year ago

This is perfect, just what I was looking for. Thanks, buddy

ChesuCR Over a year ago

What if I want to use Ctrl+K instead Ctrl+V? Because I thinks that's a quite standard way to do it in many applications. Is there any option in the extension? I don't see it :/ but thanks for your answer, it was useful !

Mark · Accepted Answer · 2022-01-06 02:25:54Z

15

Adding another answer that doesn't use the extension Markdown All In One I mentioned in the other answer and because a couple of commenters requested a different way. @MarcoLackovic

First Method: keybinding in keybindings.json, then manually paste

{
  "key": "alt+w",                  // use whatever keybinding you wish
  "command": "editor.action.insertSnippet",
  "args": {
    "snippet": "[${TM_SELECTED_TEXT}]($0)"
  },
  "when": "editorHasSelection && editorLangId == markdown "
}

Select the link text and, trigger your keybinding - the cursor will be placed where you want it and paste.

Second Method: use a macro to insert the snippet and paste in one step

You will need a macro extension like multi-command to run multiple commands in series. Then this keybinding:

{
  "key": "alt+w",
  "command": "extension.multiCommand.execute",
  "args": {
    "sequence": [
      {
        "command": "editor.action.insertSnippet",
        "args": {
          "snippet": "[${TM_SELECTED_TEXT}]($0)"
        }
      },
      "editor.action.clipboardPasteAction"
    ]
  },
  "when": "editorHasSelection && editorLangId == markdown "
}

Demo of second method:

answered Jan 6, 2022 at 2:25

Mark

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3 Comments

metawops Over a year ago

Super, Mark, that works fine! 🙂 Thanks a lot!

klewis Over a year ago

how do we give the snippet a name?

Mark Over a year ago

@klewis You can create a snippet in one of your usual snippets files and then use that name in the above keybindings. The arg would look like "name": "someNameFromSnippetsFile".

mc51 · Accepted Answer · 2024-02-06 08:36:41Z

9

The latest release of VSCode in January 2024 (1.86.0) now supports this as a standard feature. See the release notes:

Want to turn that link you copied into a Markdown link? When you paste a URL into a Markdown file with text selected, VS Code now automatically inserts a Markdown link

answered Feb 6, 2024 at 8:36

mc51

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