News

Visual Studio Code 1.39 Boosts Remote Development Preview

• By David Ramel
• 10/09/2019

The "September" update to the cross-platform, open-source Visual Studio Code Editor, now up to version 1.39, adds functionality to the remote development preview that has been in the works for a while now.

"Work has continued on the Remote Development extensions, which allow you to use a container, remote machine, or the Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) as a full-featured development environment," the dev team said.

Specific new highlights of the functionality include:

• Remote Explorer now supports the Remote - WSL extension, helping developers easily connect to installed Linux distros.
• A new Open Repository in Container command helps developers work on source code repositories in isolation.
• Experimental support to enable SSH connection sharing and use SSH to connect to Windows remote machines.

More information on the remote development effort is available in the preview's release notes.

Other highlights of the September v1.39 release as detailed by Microsoft include:

• Text selections displayed in minimap -- Developer can see selection regions in the minimap overview. The editor selection is now highlighted within the minimap, with configurable colors.
• Toggle region folding keyboard shortcut -- Quickly expand and collapse regions with Toggle Fold. Developers can now expand and collapse a folding region with the Toggle Fold (Ctrl+K Ctrl+L) command.
• Source Control tree view -- Display pending changes in either a list or new tree view. The Source Control view has been updated to use the latest tree widget. Developers can now toggle between a list and a tree view with the Toggle View Mode button on the Source Control title bar.
• Open terminal in custom working directory -- Add keyboard shortcuts for specific folders. There is a new command that allows the creation of terminals with a custom current working directory (cwd). Developers can create your own keyboard shortcuts to open new terminals in any number of handy working directories. The cwd value can either be a normal path or a variable.
• HTML ARIA attribute reference links -- Links to ARIA documentation directly from IntelliSense. Auto completion and hover information for HTML ARIA attributes now include a reference to the corresponding WAI-ARIA documentation.
• CSS property completions include semicolons -- Semicolons added as you enter CSS properties. CSS property completion now inserts a semicolon at the end of a line. Developers can use this feature with Ctrl+Enter (Windows / Linux) or Cmd+Enter (macOS) to create a new line without pushing the ending ; to the new line.
• CSS color variables preview -- Color variable completions display color swatch. When completing CSS variables, if the original variable is a color string, VS Code now shows the completion item with its color.
• Improved column breakpoint UI -- View possible inline breakpoints directly in your source code. While debugging, VS Code now shows all the breakpoint candidate locations inline. This makes it easier for the user to place a breakpoint on a more accurate position. To not clutter the UI, candidate breakpoints are only shown if there is more than one possible location on the line.
• Inline debug actions in CALL STACK view -- Stay in context with debug actions on hover. When there are sessions or threads shown in the CALL STACK view, debug actions are shown inline on hover, to make it easier to control the debug flow when debugging multiple sessions or threads. Developers no longer need to first set focus on a session or thread in order to perform an action on it.

All of the above and much more is presented in greater detail in an Oct. 9 blog post announcing the monthly update and the accompanying release notes.