Visual Studio Code v1.81 Changelog

This update is all about making your coding experience smoother and more personalized. It matters most to developers who work on large projects or use screen readers, giving them better tools to compare code and customize their workspace without getting bogged down by repetitive text or messy settings.

What's new

• Partial Profiles: You can now create custom profiles (a saved setup of your settings, shortcuts, and extensions) that only change *some* things. For example, you can keep the default keyboard shortcuts but use your own custom theme and extensions.
• Apply to All Profiles: You can now force specific settings or extensions to apply across every profile you have, so you don't have to set them up one by one.
• Smarter Markdown Link Pasting: When you paste a web URL into a Markdown file, VS Code can now intelligently format it as a clickable link without messing up existing links or code blocks.
• Collapse Unchanged Code in Diffs: When comparing two versions of a file (a "diff"), you can now hide sections of code that haven't changed. This is great for reviewing massive files because you can focus only on what was actually edited.
• Sticky Scroll in Notebooks: When scrolling through long data notebooks, your Markdown headers will "stick" to the top of the screen so you always know what section you're in.
• Preview Release Notes: You can now read the release notes for an upcoming update before you even install it, right from the settings gear menu.

Improvements

• Better Diff Alignment: When comparing files, the diff editor now lines up the text much better. If a block of code was indented or moved, it's much easier to see exactly what changed instead of having the lines jumbled.
• Faster Text Highlighting: VS Code moved the process that color-codes your text (tokenization) to run in the background. This keeps the editor running smoothly without freezing, and it is now turned on by default.
• Accessibility Upgrades: Screen readers can now easily read notifications, chat responses, and notebook outputs. Navigating between search boxes and their results is also now consistent across the whole app using simple keyboard shortcuts.
• Smarter GitHub Pull Requests: When creating a pull request (a proposal to merge your code into a project), VS Code is better at guessing the correct base branch and remembers the options you used last time.
• Tougher Python Testing: When looking for Python tests, the tool no longer stops completely if it hits an error in one file. It keeps scanning the rest of your files so you can see all your tests.

Fixes

• Symlink Git Repositories: Fixed an issue where VS Code wouldn't work properly if your code repository (the folder tracked by Git) was set up using symbolic links (shortcuts that point to another folder).
• Accessible Diff Viewer Bugs: Renamed the old "Difference Review Pane" to "Accessible Diff Viewer" and fixed bugs so screen reader users can easily jump to modified editors or open help dialogs without getting stuck.
• Diff Noise Reduction: Improved the math behind the scenes so the diff editor stops showing weird, random highlighting on lines that didn't actually change.

Breaking changes

No breaking changes in this release.