Visual Studio Code v1.71 Changelog

This update is all about making your daily coding smoother and less annoying. It matters most to developers who work on teams (where code conflicts happen), write JavaScript or Python, or spend a lot of time in the built-in terminal.

What's new

• Easier Merge Editor: When you and a teammate edit the same file (a "conflict"), VS Code now automatically suggests opening a special Merge Editor. It uses checkboxes to help you easily pick which changes to keep, without messing up your original file. You can also easily switch back to the old way of fixing conflicts if you prefer it.
• Paste Images in Jupyter: If you use Jupyter notebooks (a popular tool for data science and Python), you can now copy a screenshot or image file and paste it directly into a text (Markdown) cell.
• Terminal Upgrades: The built-in terminal now supports "shell integration" for two more command-line programs: fish and Git Bash. This just means the terminal better understands what you're typing and running. It also has a new smooth scrolling option.
• F2 File Renaming: When you press F2 to rename a file, the highlighter is smarter. It will now select just the file name, the whole name, or the file extension, making renaming much faster.
• Mute Debug Warnings: When you are debugging (finding errors) in code, starting the same test twice usually triggers an annoying warning pop-up. You can now add a simple setting to silence that warning if you know what you're doing.
• Filter Comments: If you leave comments on your code, you can now search and filter them by text or by whether they are marked "resolved" or "unresolved."

Improvements

• Better Text Comparisons: VS Code uses an algorithm (a set of rules) to compare different versions of your code. They are testing a new one that does a much better job at figuring out exactly what changed.
• Terminal Visuals: The terminal now supports fancy colored and styled underlines. It also does a better job keeping text readable when it changes the contrast to meet your theme. Special characters used in terminal themes (Powerline glyphs) now have smoother, cleaner curves.
• Task Reconnection: "Watch tasks" are background jobs that automatically run when you save a file. Now, if VS Code restarts or updates, it will automatically reconnect to these tasks so your work isn't interrupted.
• TypeScript 4.8: VS Code now includes the latest version of TypeScript (a safer version of JavaScript). It runs faster and is smarter at catching mistakes before you even run your code.

Fixes

• Blurry Terminal Fix: A long-standing bug that made the terminal text blurry when you zoomed in or out on your whole workspace has finally been fixed.
• Security and Bug Patches: This release includes a couple of follow-up updates (1.71.1 and 1.71.2) that quietly patched a security issue and squashed some general bugs to keep everything running safely.

Breaking changes

No breaking changes in this release.