Visual Studio Code Distilled Evolved Code Editing for Windows, macOS, and Linux

Table of Contents....5 About the Author....11 Acknowledgments....12 Introduction....13 Chapter 1: Introducing Visual Studio Code....14 Introducing Visual Studio Code....15 When and Why Visual Studio Code....16 Installing and Configuring Visual Studio Code....18 Installing Visual Studio Code on Windows....19 Installing Visual Studio Code on macOS....22 Installing Visual Studio Code on Linux....23 Localization Support....25 Updating Visual Studio Code....26 Previewing Features with Insiders Builds....28 Summary....30 Chapter 2: Getting to Know the Environment....31 The Welcome Page....32 The Code Editor....33 Reordering, Resizing, and Zooming Editor Windows....34 The Status Bar....35 The Activity Bar....36 The Side Bar....38 The Explorer Bar....38 The Outline View....40 The Search Tool....43 The Git Bar....44 The Debug Bar....46 The Extensions Bar....47 The Settings Button....48 Navigating Between Files....48 The Command Palette....49 The Panels Area....50 The Problems Panel....50 The Output Panel....52 The Debug Console Panel....53 Working with the Terminal....54 Summary....55 Chapter 3: Language Support and Code Editing Features....56 Language Support....57 Working with C# and C++....58 Basic Code Editing Features....59 Working with Text....59 Syntax Colorization....60 Delimiter Matching and Text Selection....62 Code Block Folding....62 Multicursors....63 Reusable Code Snippets....63 Word Completion....65 Minimap Mode....66 Whitespace Rendering and Breadcrumbs....67 Markdown Preview....69 Evolved Code Editing....70 Working with IntelliSense....71 Parameter Hints....73 Inline Documentation with Tooltips....73 Go To Definition....74 Find All References....76 Peek Definition....77 Renaming Symbols and Identifiers....78 Live Code Analysis....79 Summary....87 Chapter 4: Working with Files and Folders....88 Visual Studio Code and Project Systems....88 Working with Individual Files....89 Creating Files....90 File Encoding, Line Terminators, and Line Browsing....91 Working with Folders and Projects....93 Opening a Folder....95 Opening .NET Core Solutions....97 Opening JavaScript and TypeScript Projects....98 Opening Loose Folders....99 Working with Workspaces....100 Creating Workspaces....102 Opening Existing Workspaces....103 Workspace Structure....103 Summary....104 Chapter 5: Customizing Visual Studio Code....105 Customizations and Extensions Explained....105 Customizing Visual Studio Code....107 Theme Selection....107 Customizing the Environment....109 Understanding User Settings....109 Behind the Scenes: The settings.json File....111 A Real-World Example: Working with Proxies....113 Understanding Workspace Settings....115 Customizing Key Bindings....116 Summary....120 Chapter 6: Installing and Managing Extensions....121 Installing Extensions....121 Extension Recommendations....125 Useful Extensions....127 Managing Extensions....128 Configuring Extensions....130 Hints About Extension Authoring....132 Summary....132 Chapter 7: Source Control with Git....134 Source Control in Visual Studio Code....134 Downloading Other Source Control Providers....135 Managing Repositories....136 Initializing a Local Git Repository....137 Creating a Remote Repository....139 Handling File Changes....141 Staging Changes....143 Managing Commits....144 Working with the Git Command Line Interface....146 Creating and Managing Branches....147 Switching to a Different Branch....149 Merging from a Branch....149 Deleting Branches....150 Adding Power to the Git Tooling with Extensions....151 Git History....151 GitLens....153 GitHub Pull Requests....157 Working with Azure DevOps and Team Foundation Server....159 Summary....163 Chapter 8: Automating Tasks....165 Understanding Tasks....166 Tasks Types....167 Running and Managing Tasks....167 The Default Build Task....172 Auto-Detected Tasks....172 Configuring Tasks....174 First Example: Compiling Pascal Source Code....175 Multiple Tasks and Default Build Tasks....181 Understanding tasks.json Properties and Substitution Variables....183 Operating System-Specific Properties....189 Reusing Existing Task Templates....190 Second Example: Building a MSBuild Solution (Windows Only)....193 Understanding Problem Matchers....195 Running Files with a Default Program....196 Summary....197 Chapter 9: Running and Debugging Code....198 Creating Applications....198 Creating .NET Core Projects....199 Creating Projects on Other Platforms....202 Debugging Your Code....203 Configuring the Debugger....205 Managing Breakpoints....209 Debugging an Application....210 Evaluating Expressions....212 The Call Stack....213 The Debug Console Panel....214 Supporting Azure, Docker, and Artificial Intelligence....214 Summary....216 Index....217