Visual Studio Code v1.37 Changelog

This update is all about polishing the user experience to make coding smoother and less frustrating. It matters to everyone who uses VS Code, from students working on their first website to professional developers managing large remote projects, because it makes the editor look better and helps you find and fix text much faster.

What's new

• Modern product icons: VS Code updated all its main icons so they share a consistent style, color, and size. (Note: The tiny icons in the status bar and quick menus are staying the same for now).
• Easier string array settings: Some settings require a list of text items (a "string array"). Instead of typing these out manually in a code file, you can now add them directly in the visual Settings menu using a simple "Add Item" button.
• Preserve case in Find and Replace: When you replace text, you can now turn on the "Preserve Case" option (the AB button). If you replace a word that was fully capitalized, the new word will automatically be fully capitalized, too. It also works for Title Case and lowercase.
• See whitespace in selected text: You can now set the editor to show invisible spacing characters (like tabs and spaces) *only* on the text you highlight. This is great for checking formatting without cluttering your whole screen.
• Jump to search results in the File Explorer: When you search your project, you can now quickly jump directly to where that file lives in your sidebar folder tree.
• New file directory variable for tasks: You can use a new shortcut variable, ${relativeFileDirname}, in your custom task and debug setups. It automatically grabs the folder location of the file you currently have open.
• Smart selection for Java: If you use the Java extension, you can now use keyboard shortcuts to expand or shrink your text selection based on the actual code structure, making it easy to highlight entire functions or blocks.

Improvements

• Terminal search flows upward: Searching in the integrated terminal used to start at the top and scroll down, which was confusing. It now starts at the bottom and searches upward, matching how most other terminal programs work.
• Clearer search highlights on the minimap: The minimap (the tiny code outline on the side of your screen) now makes search matches much easier to see by highlighting the whole line faintly and the actual match brightly.
• Better tree views for extensions: Extensions that show custom file trees in the sidebar now use a newer, faster system. This brings better keyboard navigation, filtering, and horizontal scrolling to those extensions.
• Clearer active buttons: In the search and find menus, toggle buttons (like turning on case-sensitive search) now have a filled background color when they are turned on, making it much easier to see what's active.
• Unified info colors: The colors used for "information" warnings and underlines in your code have been updated to match each other perfectly.
• Better SCSS file navigation: If you write CSS using SCSS, VS Code now checks more locations when you use the @import command, making it easier to jump to those imported files.
• New file system tools for extensions: Extension creators got a new way to read, write, and manage files that works smoothly with remote setups like SSH and WSL.
• Accessibility updates: Several features were improved for people using screen readers. For example, the terminal now has a special mode to navigate text line-by-line, and various accessibility bugs across the whole program were fixed.

Fixes

• Terminal accessibility: Fixed an issue where navigating the terminal with a screen reader was difficult, adding a new line-by-line navigation mode.
• General accessibility: Squashed various bugs across the workbench to make the editor more usable for everyone relying on accessibility tools.

Breaking changes

No breaking changes in this release.