Bottom-Left Scratchpad

A minimal VS Code extension that adds a persistent <textarea> under the Explorer view for quick notes.

Features

• Always-on scratchpad in the sidebar
• Defaults to ~6 lines, still resizable by dragging
• Indentation-aware editing
  • Configurable indentSize (default 2 spaces)
  • Tab / Shift+Tab to indent/unindent at the start of the current line
  • Enter preserves the full leading indent from the previous line
  • Backspace deletes a whole indent chunk when inside the indent region, otherwise behaves normally (including merging lines)
  • Arrow keys move by full indent chunks within the indent region
  • Click on leading spaces snaps the cursor to the nearest indent boundary
• Auto-saves to global state
• No build-time configuration required

Configuration

You can tweak the number of spaces per indent level:

// in settings.json
{
  "bottomLeftScratchpad.indentSize": 4  // use 4-space indents instead of 2
}

Installation

1. Clone this repo
2. npm install
3. npm run compile
4. Package and install in VS Code:

   npm install -g vsce
   vsce package
   code --install-extension bottom-left-scratchpad-0.0.1.vsix

Development

• Press F5 to open a new Extension Development Host
• Edit src/extension.ts, then recompile with npm run compile

Usage

Open any folder in VS Code. You’ll see a Scratchpad pane under the Explorer.
Type your notes—everything is saved automatically and indentation behaves like in an editor.