Visual Studio Code v1.59 Changelog

This update is all about making VS Code a more comfortable and powerful home base for coding. It matters especially to students and developers working on data science projects, building websites, or writing complex C++ programs, because it brings built-in tools for those tasks directly into the editor.

What's new

• Built-in Jupyter Notebooks: You can now open .ipynb files (interactive data science notebooks) directly in VS Code without needing extra setup.
• Run Code Line-by-Line in Notebooks: There is a new, simplified way to debug your notebook code. It lets you step through your code one line at a time to see exactly what it's doing, without cluttering your screen with complex debugging tools.
• Live Preview for Websites: A new feature lets you see a live, updating preview of your HTML website right next to your code. As you type, the preview updates instantly, and it even helps you find errors in your JavaScript.
• View C++ Machine Code: For advanced programmers, there's a new preview feature that lets you view "disassembled" C++ code. This means you can look at the raw, low-level instructions that your computer actually reads.
• Command Line for Dev Containers: If you use "development containers" (a way to keep all your coding tools isolated in a neat digital box), there is now a command-line tool to help you manage them from your terminal.

Improvements

• Drag-and-Drop Terminals: You can now pick up your terminal windows and move them around, even dragging them between different VS Code windows or dropping them next to your code files.
• Smarter Extensions Menu: When you hover over an installed extension (a mini-program that adds features to VS Code), you now get a rich pop-up box with its full description, why it might be disabled, and a new "Runtime Status" tab showing how it's performing.
• Settings Error Checker: The settings menu now checks your code for errors. If you type in a setting wrong (especially complex list or object settings), it will warn you so you don't break your setup.
• Better Run/Debug Button: The button used to run or debug your code now remembers what you did last time. If you click the left side, it runs your favorite action. If you click the right side, it drops down a menu of all options.
• Customize Multiple Themes: If you like tweaking the colors of your editor, you can now change the colors for multiple themes all at once using a simpler list format.
• Notebook Tweaks: Collapsed boxes of notebook code now show their first line so you know what's inside, and you can now Undo or Redo actions on just one specific box of code.

Fixes

• This update fixes several general bugs and patches a specific security vulnerability (CVE-2021-26437), which means they closed a loophole that could have made the software unsafe to use.

Breaking changes

No breaking changes in this release.