Visual Studio Code has been updated with the addition of more audio cues, and improvements to the Python extension.

Visual Studio Code is Microsoft's open source code editor that shares part of its name, but not much else, with full Visual Studio. It is open source under a MIT license and development is conducted on GitHub. It is free to use and according to surveys is the preferred IDE across all developers.

The first improvement to Visual Studio Code are extra opt-in audio cues, specifically for clear, format, and save. When audioCues.clear is enabled, a sound indicates that the terminal, a notification, or the chat responses have been cleared. The next usability improvement is the ability to customize the Activity bar position. You can now move the Activity bar to top of the Side Bar. There's also now an option to hide editor tabs for a clearer screen.

The editor has been improved with a new setting to activate the nearest Quick Fix in a line from Ctrl+. no matter where your cursor is in that line. In addition, the Code Action Widget: Include Nearby Quick Fixes is now enabled by default. This highlights the source code that will be refactored or fixed with Quick Fixes.

Python support has been extended with improvements to the Python extension. There's a new Smart Send feature that avoids the previous problem whereby you could send a line of Python code that was part of a multi-line command so had no chance of running. The new experimental Smart Send feature sends the smallest block of runnable code surrounding the cursor position to the REPL for execution.  Also in the Python extension,the VS Code team has improved the supported linting extensions to allow for more configuration. The Pylint, Mypy and Flake8 extensions now offer settings that allow you to specify glob patterns for files that you wish to exclude from linting.

The Gradle for Java extension has also been improved to provide better support for building Gradle projects thanks to adopting the Build Server Protocol (BSP). Similar to other protocols used in VS Code, for example the Language Server Protocol (LSP), the BSP provides an abstraction layer between development environments and build tools such as Gradle.

Visual Studio Code 1.84 is available now.

• Mike James is both editor-in-chief of IProgrammer and a prolific author. VS Code is now his preferred code editor and is used throughout his Programmer's Python: Something Completely Different series of books and in his most recent title Extending & Embedding Python Using C, a book which takes a "best of both world's approach" - C for speed and Python for ease of programming. 

More Information

VS Code Dev Website

Visual Studio Code Website

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