Disadvantages

I noticed a few disadvantages with this approach.

Smart renames

Some LSP performs actions when renaming a file with the current SPC f R.
For example, in Rust, when I rename a file, the LSP also updates the imports in the other files.
Instead, if I use this action, the LSP rename is not invoked.
The same is true when renaming a file inside a Foam workspace.
If I rename a markdown file by using the vscode explorer, the name of the file is renamed in other files, too. By using the new SPC f R it's not.

Focus lost

After performing the action on mac, the cursor is not focused anymore on any window of vscode, so to go back to editing the file, I have to use the mouse.
Instead, with the current SPC f R, the focus stays on the explorer window of vscode.

Alternatives

Current solution

The current SPC f R doesn't work 100% of the time. Sometimes it just select the file in the file browser, without renaming it.
However, I found a fix that works better. See this PR.

Why you don't like this solution and you prefer using an extension for renaming tasks?

FileUtils extension

I tried FileUtils. "Smart renames" work. But I sill lose focus.
Anyway, I don't think it's a good idea to add yet another extension. I mentioned this to show that it's possible to have "smart renames" with extensions.

The current SPC f R doesn't work 100% of the time. Sometimes it just select the file in the file browser, without renaming it.
However, I found a fix that works better. See #293 PR.

Let's merge that PR to fix the current rename action.

Why you don't like this solution and you prefer using an extension for renaming tasks?

The built-in rename doesn't really allow you to move the file to a different path which is more align with spacemacs. However, currently there's quite a bit of issue with using vscode.workspace.fs.rename. (thanks for testing it)

Let put this on hold until we figured some of the those issues out.