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.
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.
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).
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| 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:- All windows (instances) are closed.
- On Mac, when you finally quit the application.
- 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:- Multitarget debugging, a feature which was experimental is now stable and allows you to start multiple debugging sessions.
- Adding many launch configurations to the launch.json file.
- Better support for Node.js debugging.
