Feature request for product/service
Cursor IDE
Describe the request
Double-clicking a file reference (code snippet link) in Cursor’s Chat should open the file as a full editor tab, not as a preview tab. Currently, both single click and double click open the file in preview mode.
This is inconsistent with how the rest of the editor works. Since Cursor is a fork of VS Code, the Explorer view and search results follow VS Code’s default behavior where single click opens a preview tab and double click opens a full tab. The Chat, being Cursor’s own addition, doesn’t implement this convention.
Users who have internalized the single-click-to-preview, double-click-to-keep interaction pattern across VS Code will expect it to work the same way everywhere in the editor.
Current workaround: After clicking a file reference in Chat, you can double-click the preview tab itself to promote it to a full tab. This works, but breaks the habit.
Context on Preview vs. Full Tabs
VS Code has two file opening modes:
- Preview mode (single click): The file opens in a temporary tab shown in italics. If you single-click another file, it replaces the current preview tab — the previous file doesn’t stay in the tab bar.
- Full tab mode (double click): The file opens as a persistent tab that stays in the tab bar until you explicitly close it.
This two-mode system is consistent across VS Code’s UI — the Explorer view and search results all support promoting a preview tab to a full tab via double click. Cursor’s Chat is the exception.