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Wrangling MongoDB in VS Code? Now There's Documentation
The May update of Visual Studio Code has added documentation for using the popular MongoDB document store database in Microsoft's lightweight, cross-platform code editor.
"We've added a new Working with MongoDB topic for managing MongoDB databases in VS Code with the Cosmos DB extension," the VS Code team said in a blog post announcing v1.24 -- or the May update, the latest shipment in the tool's monthly cadence.
The open source MongoDB always ranks highly in rankings of database popularity. In fact, according to the DB-Engines ranking site, MongoDB is the highest-rated document store offering, coming in 5th in the overall ranking of all databases.
The new documentation shows -- after installing the Azure Cosmos DB extension -- developers can create, manage and query MongoDB databases from within VS Code. It shows how to work with Cosmos DB Explorer, connect to MongoDB, use MongoDB commands, use Scrapbooks and more.
Also on the documentation front, the VS Code has updated its guidance for using Docker, the leading container platform. That guidance shows how to create, publish and reuse Docker containers in the code editor.
There's also the typically large number of other new features and updates in the May release, including:
- The capability to duplicate a workspace in a new window, providing a workaround of the editor's inability to open a workspace in two windows.
- The ability to zoom up the size of fonts in the editor, while type in the rest of the UI remains the same, useful for presentations and pair-programming.
- The ability to immediately and automatically go into Debug view upon hitting a breakpoint.
- Support for TypeScript 2.9, Microsoft's take on the JavaScript language that emphasizes typing functionality. The VS Code team said the new TypeScript edition adds new features such as import() types, json imports and JS Docs improvements, along with new tooling support and bug fixes.
- Previews -- features not quite ready for production use -- for: an outline view; an editor grid layout; a new Settings editor featuring an experimental GUI; and alternative locations for the Debug toolbar.
- Several improvements focusing on extensions -- a mainstay feature of VS Code -- dealing with extension authoring, proposed extension APIs and the team's own contributions to extensions.
- Moving continuous integration builds to Visual Studio Team Services, which enables a single YAML-based build definition that can be used across Windows, macOS and Linux.
VS Code developers can learn more about these and other updates by checking out a v1.24 highlights video.
About the Author
David Ramel is an editor and writer at Converge 360.