Tothom

Tothom is YAMP (Yet Another Markdown Preview) Visual Studio Code extension, that gives you nice ▶️ Run in terminal buttons for your code blocks

Features

• Markdown preview (⇧ ⌘ P Tothom: Markdown Preview)
• ▶️ Run in terminal actions for code blocks (auto-generated)
• Alternative to run code blocks in a separate shell in the background (output appended to the preview)
• GitHub styling
• Syntax highlight for code blocks
• Dark/light mode
• ANSI escape sequences to HTML (for code block output appended to the preview)
• Follow links between local markdown files
• Anchor links
• Tasks/TODO lists (with markdown-it-task-lists)
• HTML tag attributes (with markdown-it-attrs)
• Automatic reload of the preview on edit of the source markdown file
• Independent preview tabs for each markdown file
• Force preview reload (⇧ ⌘ P Tothom: Reload Preview)
• Bind an existing terminal to a preview (a dedicated one is automatically created otherwise)
• Native VSCode Find widget enabled in the preview

Usage

1. Open a markdown file that contains code blocks annotated in any of the supported languages (bash/sh/zsh), e.g.:

   # Hello World!
   ```sh
   echo 'Hello World!'
   ```
   

2. Run the Tothom: Markdown Preview command (⇧ ⌘ P)
3. Click on the ▶️ button automatically rendered with each of your code blocks, to run the code in the Visual Studio Code terminal.

For more examples with more markdown syntax, check the samples.

Re-use a terminal

Tothom binds each preview window to an integrated Visual Studio terminal. When a terminal does not exist, Tothom creates a dedicated one at the time when the first ▶️ Run in terminal action is executed.

To bind a new preview window to an existing terminal, use the command ⇧ ⌘ P Tothom: Markdown Preview (existing terminal).

To re-bind a preview window to an existing terminal, activate the preview and execute the command ⇧ ⌘ P Tothom: Select terminal.

These options allow to share a terminal across multiple preview windows.

To clear the current binding of a preview to a terminal, activate the preview window and execute the command ⇧ ⌘ P Tothom: Clear terminal selection.

Run in a separate shell in the background (output appended to the preview)

Alternatively to running a code block in an integrated Visual Studio terminal, enable the option in the settings to default to running in a separate shell in the background (tothom.runInBackgroundByDefault). New preview windows and preview windows not yet bound to a terminal will execute code blocks in the background and the output of the executions appended to the preview window.

Keep in mind that, with this option enabled, each execution of a code block will run in an independent shell (separate child process). To set and re-use environment variable values across multiple code blocks, enable the tothom.propagateEnv configuration option.

This option is ignored if the preview is currently bound to a terminal (e.g. by using the 'Select terminal' command). If needed, clear the current binding of a preview to a terminal after enabling this option by activating the preview window and executing the command ⇧ ⌘ P Tothom: Clear terminal selection.

Extension Settings

Setting	Description	Options/Default
tothom.bracketedPasteMode	Apply bracketed paste sequences on commands sent to terminal	true (default), false
tothom.colorScheme	Color scheme of the preview panel	auto (default), light, dark
tothom.runInTerminalLabel	Label of the Run in terminal button	Default: ▶️
tothom.runInBackgroundByDefault	Default to running code blocks in a separate child process in the background instead of the integrated terminal	true, false (default)
tothom.propagateEnv	Propagates environment variables across executions when running code blocks in separate shells in the background	true (default), false

Limitations

Markdown syntax for code blocks only
Code block execution only works with markdown code block syntax (delimited by ```). Tothom will not render the ▶️ Run in terminal button for code blocks written using HTML syntax (<pre>).

Release Notes

Check the the full release notes in the Change Log.