Inserting a URL in Markdown in VS Code

Since I switched my blog to pelican last summer I've been using VS Code as my writing app. And it's really good for writing, note just code but prose as well.

The one problem I've had is there's no keyboard shortcut for links when writing in markdown ... at least not a default / native keyboard shortcut.

In other (macOS) writing apps you just select the text and press ⌘+k and boop! There's a markdown link set up for you. But not so much in VS Code.

I finally got to the point where that was one thing that may have been keeping me from writing because of how much 'friction' it caused!

So, I decided to figure out how to fix that.

I did have to do a bit of googling and eventually found this StackOverflow answer

Essentially the answer is

1. Open the Preferences Page: ⌘+Shift+P
2. Select Preferences: Open Keyboard Shortcuts (JSON)
3. Update the keybindings.json file to include a new key

The new key looks like this:

{
    "key": "cmd+k",
    "command": "editor.action.insertSnippet",
    "args": {
        "snippet": "[${TM_SELECTED_TEXT}]($0)"
    },
    "when": "editorHasSelection && editorLangId == markdown "
}

Honestly, it's little things like this that can make life so much easier and more fun. Now I just need to remember to do this on my work computer 😀