Published on Sep 07, 2022
Version 1.71 of Visual Studio Code includes a number of new features, including experimental support for the fish shell.
Originally developed for Unix-like operating systems such as Linux and macOS, Fish (“friendly interactive shell”) can also be installed on Windows via Cygwin, Windows Subsystem for Linux, or MSYS2 (based on a modified Cygwin). It has its own scripting language, though bash users will find it familiar. A manual configuration edit is required for installation into VS Code. Fish, the configuration file for fish.
Git Bash is now also available as an experimental terminal. With Git Bash, you can run git commands in a Bash environment on Windows.
A sticky scroll is now fully released – though not by default – after being experimental in version 1.70. While the name does not describe it well, it is an excellent addition. You may lose track of which block a piece of code is in when you are gazing at it in the editor. The developer may have started looking at one function but scrolled to the next. The sticky scroll shows the current scope, such as the function name, at the top of the editor. Content determines how the current scope is defined. Markdown files show the heading hierarchy, which may consist of several “sticky” lines. HTML will also show the hierarchy from the top html element to the current div. There is a maximum number of sticky lines specified in the settings.
Code Action control is a pop-up menu that shows quick fixes and refactorings for VS Code users. Subheads and documentation links are included in the new control.
VS Code includes a media player that uses the open-source FFmpeg library. The format used to support only Flac audio files is now supported by H.264 video and MP3, Vorbis, and WAV audio. Notebooks or webviews in the editor can benefit from this.
In this update, VS Code includes TypeScript 4.8, which was released late last month. A number of improvements have been made to TypeScript 4.8, including more helpful error reporting and a few breaking changes.
