Support double‑clicking MATLAB-related files in VS Code Explorer

[cuixing158]

Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe.
Currently, MATLAB‑related files (.mat, .fig, .slx, .mdl, .mlapp, .mlx, and other extensions) cannot be opened in the same way as in MATLAB Desktop’s File → Workspace. In VS Code Explorer, double‑clicking these files only shows them as binary files and they cannot be opened.

Describe the solution you'd like
I would like the behavior to be similar to MATLAB Desktop:

• Double‑clicking a .mat file should directly import the data into the MATLAB Workspace.

• Double‑clicking a .fig file should open the figure window.

• Double‑clicking a .mlapp file should open the App Designer interface.

• … and so on.

Describe alternatives you've considered
At present, I can only open these files by explicitly calling MATLAB built‑in functions such as load or open, alternative, I install another mathworks' extension https://github.com/mathworks/data-explorer-vscode

[dklilley]

Hi @cuixing158 , thanks for opening this request!

Unfortunately, VS Code does not provide the ability to override double-clicking on files in the explorer. However, we have added a MATLAB: Open File option to the context menu for files in the Explorer - clicking this will trigger a MATLAB call to open on the selected file.

This should work for most of the files you indicated. The notable exception is MAT files, which require a call to load instead. This is a gap we would like to resolve in an upcoming release.

[cuixing158]

Thank you for your quick reply. I have a question: why do other extensions support this kind of "double-clicking" operation on files?
For example, I usually use Jupyter Notebook too — of course, I have the Jupyter extension installed — yet a .ipynb file in the Explorer can be opened by double-clicking, which makes me quite curious.

https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/datascience/jupyter-notebooks

[dklilley]

My suspicion is that the Jupyter extension is owned by Microsoft, and therefore has more access to undocumented functionality within VS Code.