Saturday 31 December 2016

Visual Studio Code 1.8 brings Zen Mode, Hot Exit and several smart features

Visual Studio Code is a powerful code text editor redefined and optimized for building and debugging modern web and cloud applications. Since its release in 2015, Visual Studio Code has been a hit with the dot net development community. It has a rich ecosystem of extensions for other languages (such as C++, C#, Python, PHP, Go) and runtimes (such as .NET and Unity). Perhaps customization is one of the reasons for its massive popularity - users can change the editor's theme, keyboard shortcuts, and preferences. And while it is free and open-source the official download is under a proprietary license.

Visual Studio Code Zen Mode
Visual Studio Code Zen Mode

Microsoft recently announced significant updates to Visual Studio Code in the recent version 1.8 release.  This version introduces many useful features that the software has been missing since its launch. Here is a quick rundown of some of these stellar features.

1. Zen mode

One of the key features of this release is the Zen Mode. You can activate the Zen mode by typing ⌘-K-Z (Ctrl-K-Z in Windows) and disable it by hitting escape twice.  Another option is to turn it on and off using the Toggle Zen Mode option from the View menu. The benefit of this feature is that it lets you go ‘Zen’ by hiding the activity bar, the sidebar, the panel and status bar, allowing you to go full screen and focus on coding. If you prefer not to go full screen, disable it via window.fullScreenZenMode. Using Double Escape lets you exit Zen Mode.

2. Hot exit

One of the hottest features – Hot Exit remembers your unsaved changes when you exit.  Hot Exit will be activated under the following cases:


  1. All windows (instances) are closed.
  2. On Mac, when you finally quit the application.
  3. Window reload

Upon launching VS code post Hot Exit, all workspaces and files that are backed up will be restored. Hot Exit works by default in case of VS code crash, protecting unsaved changes regardless of whether Hot Exit is enabled or disabled (via the files.hotExit setting).

3. Search settings

One of the common user complaint and feedback for VS code was that of having trouble working with their settings. This release worked on improving discoverability and user experience for modifying settings and this resulted in many changes including default search settings. It now has a big search bar for faster and easier search. Not only does it show and highlight settings matching your search criteria, it also filters out the settings that don’t match. This makes finding settings very convenient.

4. Debugging support

VS code support for debugging has been enhanced for version 1.8.  Some of the new features include:

  1. Multitarget debugging, a feature which was experimental is now stable and allows you to start multiple debugging sessions.
  2. Adding many launch configurations to the launch.json file.
  3. Better support for Node.js debugging.


Significant update

Additionally there are several noteworthy features in this release that make it more valuable for developers. Some of them are faster text search, regardless of project size, snippet authoring, keyboard shortcuts, JavaScript IntelliSense support in HTML, TypeScript update for improved language support and so on. This is a significant release and has been received favorably by the developer community. Have you downloaded the latest version? Please share your views and opinions about what you liked and what you didn’t in the comments section below.

Friday 23 December 2016

5 Of The Best To-Do List Apps For Personal & Professional Use

The current generation has to juggle with a lot of roles and tasks in their day-to-day life. There are countless activities we need to perform in a day. Though our minds are well equipped when it comes to storing and recalling the daily tasks, we often tend to forget one or a few important activities amidst the hectic schedule. That’s when a to-do list mobile app can come to our rescue.

There's a multitude of to-do mobile apps available in Google Play and App Store. Whether you are an entrepreneur, employee, or a household manager, you can easily find your kind of to-do application with a simple interface, multiple tasks tracking categories with different color codes and other additional features. You can even leverage help of a Xamarin application development firm to create a customized to-do app of your own.

Meanwhile, take a look at some of the best cross-platform to-do applications we have listed below to help you stay organized on-the-go and never miss out on any important task in the future.

Best To-Do Applications For Millennials:

1. Wunderlist: Wunderlist is a powerful to-do app acquired by Microsoft last year. It boosts your productivity by allowing you to create your task list and share it with your co-workers and friends who will have the capability of altering the lists on their own. The best part of using Wunderlist is that it provides the user experience that doesn’t get messy even when multiple people are working on a list at the same time. It is a user-friendly app with a very sleek design. Adding and checking off your tasks on Wunderlist is not just fun but also easy and intuitive.
Price – Free
Available on: Android / iOS / Windows / WP / OSX / Web


2. Trello: Trello is a popular online project management application. It is built around the concept of “Kanban”, a scheduling platform that lets you shift your tasks from one state to another. It allows you to drag, drop, color-code, and manipulate items in your to-do list. It arranges larger projects into “Task Boards” wherein you can create a list of sub-tasks. In each list, you can add a “Card” where you can list all your items of the task. To each card, you can add a checklist, a due date, color-code labels, attachments, and also drag and drop the cards between boards and lists.
Price – Free
Available on: Android / iOS / Windows / Web


3. Todoist: Todoist is another powerful application that provides lots of great features to organize your professional and personal lives. It is well-designed and user-friendly. It allows you to add projects, sub-projects, and sub-tasks. You can prioritize the tasks by adding due dates, color-code, and assigning various categories. Todoist also integrates with other services such as Google Drive, IFTTT, and Sunrise Calendar.
Price – Free
Available on: Android / iOS / Windows / Web


4. Google Keep: Google Keep has been around for a while and is an amazing tool to quickly create and save lists or notes. The app automatically syncs your notes and lists across Google Drive and on the cloud enabling you to access it on any device anytime. You can easily add and store your text notes, checklists, voice notes, web links, and photos on Google Keep.
Price – Free
Available on: Android / iOS / Chrome / Web


5. Any.do: Any.do is one of the most beautifully designed to-do apps that focuses on achievement whether personally or professionally. It is highly collaborative as it syncs your tasks across multiple devices allowing you to easily share the tasks, reminders, checklists, and more. It includes all the features you would expect from a to-do app including drag-drop, swipe-to-complete, and voice entry. One of the coolest features in Any.do is the ability to shake your device to clear completed tasks.
Price – Free
Available on: Android / iOS / Chrome / Web


Which is your favorite to-do list app? What are best features you find in it? Drop your answers in the comments below.