Hello readers, in this article we will discuss one of the biggest obsessions of developers. You said it right, Visual Studio Code, the best friend of the developer. We will be looking at features of Visual Studio Code, language support, customizability, etc.
Contents
What is Visual Studio Code?
Visual Studio Code, generally termed as VS Code by developers is an Integrated Development Environment. Now you may ask what is an Integrated Development Environment. Integrated Development Environment, IDE is a piece of software that provides you an environment to develop software and applications. VS Code is one of the best and mostly used IDE out there. Hence, simply VS Code is like a text editor where you can write code but with a bunch of great features.
Who developed Visual Studio Code?
Visual Studio Code is an open-source software initially developed by Microsoft, even today VS Code is looked after by many developers around the world along with the support of Microsoft being its creator.
What are some of the important features of Visual Studio Code?
Talking about the features of VS Code, some of them are described below.
Operating System Support
Visual Studio Code is one of the software that runs on all three major operating systems. Thus, VS Code is available for Windows, Linux, and macOS.
Language Support
Language Support in VS Code is incredible. You can code anything literally anything inside VS Code. Following are some of the languages supported by VS Code
VS Code supports almost every programming language out there unless you are coding on something like QBASIC or so.
Language Features
With a greatness language support, VS Code comes with different language features. Some of them are as follows.
- Syntax Highlighting
- Bracket matching
- Auto-Completion
- Code Navigation
- Syntax suggestions
- Code Tips and Help
- MultiLine Editing
- Find and Replace
- Testing and Debugging
These are just to name a few. There are a bunch of other features in VS Code.
Integrated Terminal
With other great features, VS Code ships with a very powerful terminal. You can choose different shells available in the system. With the Integrated Terminal, it is very easy to keep track of application status, errors, and many other things as everything is in the same place.
Setting Sync
VS Code comes with a setting sync feature out of the box. With the setting sync function, it is very easy to setup the same configuration in a new system or a complete reinstallation. You can choose to sign up with either Microsoft Account or Github account and start the setting sync feature in your VS Code so that you are always ready to work on a new system.
Snippets and Emmet
Snippets and Emmet is one of the best and most incredible features of VS Code. Code snippets are templates that make it easier to enter repeating code patterns, such as loops or conditional statements. and also, Emmet it provides auto completions to make the life of developers easier.
Extensions
VS Code comes with a huge library of available extensions. Although VS Code is one of the best IDE there are some features lacking in VS Code, but the good part here is that we can remove those limitations with the help of extensions available in the extensions tab of VS Code. Some of the incredible extensions I recommend installing are:
- GitLens – It helps us to keep track of the logs like who committed the changes, when, commit messages, etc. which are incredibly useful for developers working with teams.
- LiveServer – It is one of the best extensions for those who write HTML as it enables hot reload functionality like in React or Next.
- Prettier – As the name suggests it helps to prettify our code. This extension enables developers to format code easily to be more presentable in front of other developers.
- Bracket Pair Colorizer – It is one of the live savers, it is extremely useful while working on a file that has a lot of functions and so.
- CodeSnap – It is one of those extensions that helps us to create a snap of code that looks extremely beautiful so that we can share some piece of code with others.
- ThunderClient – An great alternative of postMan to test APIs.
Moreover, there are different extensions corresponding to the Language you are writing code on to make your life easier.
Theme Options
VS Code is a very customizable IDE. You can customize VS Code the way you want. There are a lot of color themes to try out. I have listed some of them below that look and feel good.
- Material Theme
- Abyss
- Cobalt
- Monokai
- The Best Theme
- Tokyo
There are many other themes out there so that you can choose the one that best fits your choice.
These are just some of the features of VS Code. There are many others that you can explore yourself and discover.
How to download VS Code?
For Windows
In order to download VS Code in Windows, you will need to go to the official website of VS Code and download the installer and then run the installer. Then you know the traditional method of installation (Next, Next, Next, …).
For macOS
- Download Visual Studio Code for macOS.
- Open the browser’s download list and locate the downloaded app or archive.
- If archive, extract the archive contents. Use double-click for some browsers or select the ‘magnifying glass’ icon with Safari.
- Drag Visual Studio Code.app to the Applications folder, making it available in the macOS Launchpad.
- Open VS Code from the Applications folder, by double-clicking the icon.
- Add VS Code to your Dock by right-clicking on the icon, located in the Dock, to bring up the context menu and choosing Options, Keep in Dock.
For Linux
Conclusion
In the end, I would just say that VS Code is one the best IDE that you can ever get. I recommend you install and try out visual studio code and see how your workflow improves.
