Can I write a vscode extension to open a file (from explorer panel) directly in webview?

Question

The behavior I want is that when I click on a file (of certain extension) in the explorer panel, instead of opening a text editor, a webview shows up. An example would be that when I open a .md file, instead of showing the markdown text, a custom made WYSIWYG markdown editor (webview) is shown directly.

I managed to open the webview via command and I even hooked it up to the onDidChangeActiveTextEditor and onDidOpenTextDocument events so that whenever a text editor is opened or focused, the corresponding webView is opened and focused immediately.

This almost does what I want, with two issues. One is that the text editor still shows up for a moment. Second, and more problematic, the webview does not sync with the explorer panel as well as the text editor does. For instance, when a text editor is focused, the corresponding file is selected in the explorer panel. The webview doesn't do that.

Is there a way to make the webview the default and primary editor for a type of document?

Answer 1

This is not possible as of VS Code 1.30. These issue are tracking something similar: https://github.com/Microsoft/vscode/issues/12176 and https://github.com/Microsoft/vscode/issues/22068