Visual Studio Code v1.48 Changelog

This update is all about making your workflow smoother, whether you're syncing your perfect coding setup across multiple computers, sharing your code on GitHub, or just trying to fix bugs in a web app. It matters to anyone who uses VS Code regularly and wants a cleaner, faster experience.

What's new

• Settings Sync (Preview): You can now save your VS Code settings (like themes and shortcuts) to the cloud and sync them across different computers. If you've synced before, there's a new "manual merge" tool to make updating your settings much smoother.
• Debug any URL: You can now debug a website just by opening a URL, without needing to write a special setup file (a launch.json config) or install extra extensions. If you have a web link copied to your clipboard, VS Code will automatically suggest it.
• Public GitHub Repos: When uploading (publishing) your code to GitHub, you can now easily choose to make it a public repository instead of defaulting to private.
• Java Lightweight Mode: If you code in Java, VS Code can now open your files much faster by skipping heavy background tasks until you actually need them.
• Dev Container Help: Added new guides to help you connect your code to a "Dev Container" (a ready-to-go coding environment inside a virtual container).

Improvements

• Cleaner Menus: The menus for Extensions (your add-ons) and Source Control (tracking code changes) have been reorganized. Instead of a giant, confusing list, commands are sorted into neat submenus and filter buttons (like a funnel icon).
• Search Editor Sorting: When searching through your code, you can now sort the results by file type, when they were modified, or how many matches there are.
• Source Control Keyboard Navigation: Pressing the Spacebar on a changed file in the Source Control view opens a quick preview of it, letting you keep your hands on the keyboard.
• Always Show Repositories: A new setting makes the Source Control view always show your project folders, even if you only have one open, keeping things consistent.
• Browser Encoding: The web browser version of VS Code now supports all the same text file encodings (how text is saved to a file) as the desktop app.
• TypeScript 4.0 Previews: If you use TypeScript, you can test out the upcoming 4.0 version, which gives you smarter code suggestions while your project loads and puts a line through outdated code.
• Hex Editor Add-ons: The Hex Editor (a tool for viewing raw computer data) can now copy and paste, watch for file changes, and use find-and-replace with wildcards.

Fixes

• The JavaScript debugger (the tool that helps you find errors in your code) received dozens of fixes based on user feedback to make it more reliable.
• The debug icon on the bottom status bar was updated to match the rest of the app, making it clearer when the program is going to pause at your breakpoints (intentional pauses in your code).
• The Debug view will no longer pop open and annoy you every time; it now only opens automatically during your very first debugging session.

Breaking changes

No breaking changes in this release.