Visual Studio Code Updated with a Slew of New Features

visual studio code auto indent

Auto indent in action when moving lines

Microsoft has released an update to Visual Studio Code, its open-source code editor for Windows, macOS and Linux.

Visual Studio Code 1.14 is a sizeable update to the Electron-based editor, and adds a slate of new features, various stability and usability improvements, plus a welcome dose of bug fixes.

Notable Improvements

Selection has been re-implemented in the integrated Terminal. You can now select and copy text from more than one page of the terminal; there’s a new Select All command and basic find functionality; and smarter selection of URLs.

The Command Palette can now show the last typed input when reopened, and a (configurable) list of the most recently used (MRU) commands persists between sessions.

Auto indentation can be enabled to auto indent when typing, moving, and pasting TypeScript, JavaScript, HTML, CSS, JSON or another language that has indentation rules. Microsoft says these rules are still under development, so don’t do expert quirks if you choose to use this feature.

Other highlights in this release:

  • Emmet abbreviation enhancements
  • New Diff review pane
  • Angular debugging recipe
  • Minimap can be set to always show
  • New Debug API
  • Ships with TypeScript 2.4.1
  • Git improvements

See the full release announcement for a wealth of additional context, background and detail on these and other new features in this release.

Install Visual Studio Code 1.14 on Ubuntu 16.04 LTS+

screenshot of visual studio code 1.14 running on Ubuntu 17.04

Visual Studio Code is a free download available for Windows, macOS and Linux (including Ubuntu) direct from the VS Code website:

Download Visual Studio Code

Ubuntu users can also install Visual Studio Code as a Snap app though, as of writing, this is yet to be updated to the latest version.

sudo snap install vscode --classic

You can also add the official Visual Studio Code repository to your software sources to receive the latest (and future) updates via Software Updater.

First download the Microsoft repo security key:

curl https://packages.microsoft.com/keys/microsoft.asc | gpg --dearmor > microsoft.gpg

Add it your system:

sudo mv microsoft.gpg /etc/apt/trusted.gpg.d/microsoft.gpg

Then, add the repo:

sudo sh -c 'echo "deb [arch=amd64] https://packages.microsoft.com/repos/vscode stable main" > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/vscode.list'

And install VS Code:

sudo apt update && sudo apt install code

Source