code from terminal not transferring focus to a vs code window on macOS

[vdovhanych]

When opening project from the macOS terminal with code . vs code opens in the background and focus in not transferred to that window. This also happens if you already have project open in and it wont bring focus to that window.

Does this issue occur when all extensions are disabled?: Yes/No
Yes

• VS Code Version:
  Version: 1.63.1 (Universal)
  Commit: fe719cd
  Date: 2021-12-14T02:13:13.580Z (1 day ago)
  Electron: 13.5.2
  Chromium: 91.0.4472.164
  Node.js: 14.16.0
  V8: 9.1.269.39-electron.0
  OS: Darwin arm64 21.2.0
• OS Version:
  macOS Version 12.1 (21C52)

Steps to Reproduce:

1. Open project from default macOS terminal with code . in the project directory. Focus stays on terminal and is not transfer to vscode window (opens in the background)

Screen.Recording.2021-12-15.at.17.02.40.mov

[bpasero]

Maybe related to the change we did to use open command.

[deepak1556]

I am unable to repro with the steps provided, what happens when you try the following

> open -b com.microsoft.VSCode --args <abosolute-path-to-your-project>

[vdovhanych]

I am unable to repro with the steps provided, what happens when you try the following

> open -b com.microsoft.VSCode --args <abosolute-path-to-your-project>

Still the same behaviour as was described in the original post. Attaching a video to demonstrate.

Screen.Recording.2021-12-16.at.9.39.34.mov

If it helps to debug, this started happening to me after the latest vscode or macOS update, not sure what broke it because both were updated approx at the same time.

[vdovhanych]

I have resolved this issue. This is related to enabling Secure keyboard entry in the terminal options. If enabled, you can reproduce the described behaviour. (also affects github-cli with opening the browser)

[deepak1556]

Thanks for narrowing down the issue, there is not much we can do here as its a OS behavior, Secure Keyboard Entry uses secure input event feature https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/technotes/tn2150/_index.html which expects the process calling this method will have access to keyboard input and not other process intercepting it.

You can simply try launching any other keyboard input receiving applications from the terminal and they will be launched in the background. For ex:

/Applications/Safari.app/Contents/MacOS/Safari