This month’s update to the Visual Studio Code code editor has been published, featuring a troubleshooter for extensions.
Visual Studio Code 1.52, known as the November 2020 release, has an extension bisect feature, to troubleshoot which extensions are causing issues in the editor. Prior to this capability, developers needed to disable all extensions then re-enable them one-by-one to find a problem with an extension.
The extension bisect feature uses a binary search algorithm to quickly identify an extension causing trouble. The feature disables half of extensions and asks developers to check for the issue in question. If the issue is gone, the bad extension must have been in the list of disabled extensions. The process is repeated until a single extension is left.
Found in the Visual Studio Marketplace, Visual Studio Code extensions serve as the “true power” of the editor, with extensions providing themes and language support as well as for debugging and code navigation, the Visual Studio Code team said in its monthly update bulletin.
Visual Studio Code can be downloaded at code.visualstudio.com. Other capabilities in Visual Studio Code 1.52 include:
- Several Git commands have been added to the Command Palette. These include Cherry Pick, for picking a specific commit to a branch; Rename, to rename an active file; Push Tags, to push local tags to the remote, and Checkout to (Detached), to perform a checkout in detached mode.
- Several new Git settings have been added, such as
gitpruneOnFetch, which makes the editor rungit fetch --prunewhen fetching remote refs. - Side-by-side and inline views in the diff editor now support word wrapping.
- Improvements have been made to the Keyboard Shortcuts editor. For example, users can now configure a keybinding for a command from the Command Pallette via the Configure Keybinding button on the right.
- File Explorer now supports Undo and Redo for all file operations.
- Preview editors have been updated based on user feedback.
- A new setting,
editor.stickyTabStops, makes Visual Studio Code treat cursor movements in leading spaces similar to tabs. - IntelliSense word-based suggestions have been improved. Visual Studio Code now can be configured to suggest words from other open files.
- Terminal settings now can be modified by selecting Configure Terminal Settings in the terminal dropdown menu.
The predecessor Visual Studio Code 1.51 release, published in November, was a housekeeping release with workbench and terminal capabilities.
