Visual Studio Code v1.84 Changelog

This update is all about giving you more control over your screen space and making coding feel smoother. It matters a lot to developers who work with multiple files at once, use AI tools like Copilot, or rely on Python and Java for their projects.

What's new

• Move the Activity Bar: You can now move the main menu (the Activity Bar) from the side to the top of your screen. This is great for smaller screens or laptops where you want to save horizontal space.
• Hide Editor Tabs: If you feel cluttered having a tab for every single file you open, you can now hide them completely or set it to show just one tab at a time.
• Maximize Editor Groups: You can now instantly expand the file you are currently working on to fill the whole screen. Just use a keyboard shortcut (Cmd/Ctrl+K then Cmd/Ctrl+M) or double-click a tab. It easily restores your previous layout when you're done.
• New Audio Cues: VS Code can now play little sound effects when you save a file, format your code, or clear the terminal. This is helpful if you like audio confirmation that your action worked.
• Multi-Document Highlighting: When you click on a word, VS Code can now highlight that same word across multiple different files, not just the one you are currently looking at.
• FastAPI Tutorial: There is a new guide built into the editor to help you learn how to build web apps using Python's FastAPI framework.

Improvements

• Smarter Settings Search: When you look for a setting to change how VS Code works, the search tool now acts more like a smart search engine, giving you more relevant results even if you don't type the exact name.
• Python Upgrades: It is now easier to create "virtual environments" (isolated folders that keep your project's tools separate from the rest of your computer) and to run your code directly in the terminal.
• Java Gradle Support: Better tools for managing Java projects that use Gradle (a popular system for building and organizing code).
• Copilot Streaming Chat: When you ask the GitHub Copilot AI for help writing code, it now "types" out its answer piece by piece as it thinks of it, rather than making you wait for the whole answer to pop in at once.
• Notebook Scrolling: When running blocks of code in notebooks (like Jupyter), pressing Shift+Enter now scrolls more smoothly to show you the results without jumping around too much.
• Clickable Error Links: When Python code crashes, the error messages now include clickable links that jump straight to the line of code that caused the problem.
• Remote Development: If you code on a remote server or inside a "Dev Container" (a standardized, pre-set coding environment), you can now log in more easily with a Microsoft account, and Windows users have better support for connecting over SSH.

Fixes

• Windows Magnifier: Fixed an issue where the built-in Windows screen magnifier wasn't properly following the cursor inside VS Code.
• JavaScript Debugger: Fixed a frustrating bug where the debugger (the tool used to find mistakes in code) would get confused by renamed variables. When code is bundled together for the web, variables often get renamed to shorter names, which used to break the debugger's tracking. It now understands exactly where those renamed pieces belong.
• Force Push Safety: Improved how VS Code forces code updates to a remote server (a "force push"). It now uses a safer Git setting that double-checks you aren't accidentally deleting someone else's work before pushing your own.

Breaking changes

No breaking changes in this release.