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💻My Web Development VS Code Settings, theme, Extensions, tips and tricks

Michael "lampe" Lazarski on July 21, 2019

I have been using a lot of editors and IDE's since I began programming. Eclipse, Netbeans, Notepade++, Brackets Editor, Sublime Text 2, Sublime Tex...
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Albert Vásquez • Edited

Great guide!

here is another tip: to delete a line on VS Code you can also use ctrl+shift+k

ctrl + x cuts the line, this might be a problem if you have text in your clipboad that you want to paste later, which happens to me often enough to make a change to a 3-key shortcut

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Michael "lampe" Lazarski

There are so many more shortcuts. Maybe I should write just a post about how to use vs code with keyboard shortcuts 🤔

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Nazmi

or dd in Vim Mode!

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Michael "lampe" Lazarski

yeah, vim mode is in vs code by default!

My problem is I never got used to it :)

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Daniel Millier

Great tips! My top extension would be AutoSync. Makes a backup gist of your settings & extensions on GitHub, so it's easy to download to a fresh install of VS Code!

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Michael "lampe" Lazarski

Yeah, I used that too.

The interface and the UX of that extension is just a pain for me 🤣.

I would love to see something nicer and easier to use.

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🎲Danil Rodin🎲

It's already got user friendly interface with last updates, check it!) You won't be disappointed. Creating a new backup on clean installation can be done in two clicks

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Michael "lampe" Lazarski

Okay, I will then check it out!

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Waleed Barakat • Edited

Yes, I have tried too many of editors like you did! some of it needs a decade to load and the other's isn't completely free or comes with limited features.

The vscode has everything plus super fast including unlimited free addons from worldwide web developers.

I removed all old editors and installed vscode and it really the best of them all.

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Michael "lampe" Lazarski

Yeah exactly.

At first, I was skeptical because it comes from Microsoft but they are changing and I really like that Microsoft open sources more and more apps.

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ryan-rocketsoftware

This is an interesting insight into how people view Microsoft. I started my career out with Classic ASP then transitioned to .NET then in 2012 I went to Node.js, Angular and eventually React.

Coming from .NET I used VS Code the first day it was offered in Beta and never left. Even though it progressed in performance and extensibility over the years I’ve always thought it was better then Sublime and Atom IDE for JavaScript, CSS and HTML development.

Microsoft in my mind has done one thing better then all of its competitors over the past 20 years which is build amazing tools for software development especially in the IDE space. All versions and iterations of Visual Studio over the years have been leaps and bounds over any of its competitors starting from its first release of Visual Studio 97 also known as Visual InterDev which I started out with up until now with VS Code.

Besides that they fail at almost everything else unfortunately which could be a blog post in itself in its attempts at success in every business sector which led to historical failures over the years.

Great article by the way. I had a bad experience working with WSL on my windows laptop which I needed to work on IBM carbon component library so I just decided to use my Mac instead which is my preference anyway. I’m starting to see a lot of articles and posts out there around WSL so it’s definitely growing in popularity.

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Michael "lampe" Lazarski

The thing is a few years ago I was an Arch Linux User and at work, I'm still a Linux user. Installing packages and software and dependencies were just so much better in Linux and if you picked the right hardware you had no problems installing Linux at all.

Bash or ZSH or whatever terminal you are using was just so much better.

Also, performance over Windows the same laptop was like night and day!

Windows was just slow and sluggish.

I never used ASP.net or Visual Studio.

I still prefer open-source then closed source software.

WSL2 will be amazing! It is a fast Linux VM that has almost zero overhead and the tooling for it gets better and better!

and Thank you :)

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Peter Cruckshank

I've got to have Code Spell Checker, and Auto-Close & Auto-Rename.
Plus I've been using Fira Code iScript as my font. And I'm loving it It's on GitHub at Fira Code iScript

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Michael "lampe" Lazarski

Looks nice I will try it!

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Wouter Joosse

I find GitLens to be an excellent extension. Very useful to see the git history per line of code.

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Michael "lampe" Lazarski

Yeah at work I have also installed GitLens but it is not a must for me. I find it helpful when you work in teams and you want to see who to ask if you don't understand something.

For my pet projects I usually just use the terminal for git commands :)

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Wouter Joosse

Yeah, for pet projects where you're the only one writing code it might be overkill :)

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Michael "lampe" Lazarski

but git blame is fun :D

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Jonathan Boshoff

Hey man, just came across this article few days ago, great tips. Just finished installing everything. One quick thing, sorry if I missed it, is it a good idea to plug your IDE directly into a git project? How can you do so with VS Code?
Thanks

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Michael "lampe" Lazarski

Hey, nice to hear that.

I don't fully understand what you mean with plug your IDE directly into git?

I use the command line but still, I see the changed files and new files in vscode.

A lot of people are using Git Lens its an extension for vscode that integrates git even more into the IDE.

In the end do what is best for you and what feels the best for you :)

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Jonathan Boshoff

Yeah sorry for the vagueness, wasn't quite sure how to put it.

Basically just something that shows what files/lines are changed directly in your editor, then some basic git commands too. I think that does clear it up a bit. I'll check out Lens and see if it does what I need.

Thanks for the help :)

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Michael "lampe" Lazarski

But this is already in vscode without any extension :)

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Zach Weishar

Nice write up, there are some nice tips here.

One thing I love about VS Code is the built-in git integration, specifically the file diff interface. Sure, I could do this on the command line, but having a UI for it makes it so much easier!

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Michael "lampe" Lazarski

yeah the diff tool is actually pretty nice :)

I don't use often git diff but when I do I use the vscode ui for that

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Aaron Powell

I found issues using WSL as the primary shell in Code because it overrides the way commands are executed from tasks and often it'll think it's executing the Windows version but get a Linux version (or vice versa). Because of this I've pretty much ditched running anything in Code on Windows and do it entirely via Remote + WSL.

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Michael "lampe" Lazarski

Yeah, I don't have any dev tools installed on windows directly I only use WSL or remote!

I also don't want to go back to windows for development. At least in the current state.

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Clinton Gallagher

VSCode has finally graduated into the bigtime. It is now a buggy FUBAR app that will not rename or delete files.

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Drawcard

Have you tried renaming / deleting files after disabling all your extensions? I doubt VSCode would have released such a major bug in their IDE, it's more likely an issue to do with a poorly written plugin.

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Clinton Gallagher

No I haven't disabled all of the extensions I have loaded. I suppose that's a consideration.

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Me

Never experienced this.

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Michael "lampe" Lazarski

Never had this problem. Even with shaky ssh connection it works good 😊👍

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beckibloom

Wow! I’ve been waiting for an article like this- I am still learning all the cool things VS Code can do. Can’t wait to implement some of these!!

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Michael "lampe" Lazarski

Nice to hear! Thank you!

Are there any topics about vs code you would like to hear more about?

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beckibloom

I'd love to know about different ways you might go about getting really efficient when working between several open windows - for example, working in VS Code alongside Postman, Chrome, debugging window, etc. It can get to be a lot! Someone must have a better system of making that easier! Lol!

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Michael "lampe" Lazarski

That's a good question!

ALT+TAB and ALT+SHIFT+TAB.

To switch around the windows.

But maybe someone also has a better method.

People on OSX use different desktops but that's for me the same as using ALT+TAB.

Instead of postman I use REST Client

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beckibloom

Cool, thanks for sharing!

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Michael "lampe" Lazarski

Your welcome 😊 👍

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Aditya Padwal • Edited

That's great. My VS Code takes around 5 mins to settle and load extension. Even the intellisence doesn't work that great. I like VS code though. I use VS code for Python and JS apps development. Can you suggest something over here ?

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Michael "lampe" Lazarski

5 Minutes?
How many extensions do you have? xD

You can load extensions by workspace.

Or do you need all of them every time?

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Craig Holliday

Great post! I’m definitely going to try these out later 👌👌

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Michael "lampe" Lazarski

Thank you!
Tell me what you liked the most and what you didn't liked?

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Craig Holliday

The cursor style is subtle but great!

I'll be trying Synthwave theme though I've been using and enjoying Night Owl for a while now.

Disabling telemetry is smart. Didn't know this was an option and I always like sending my data 👍

I'll have to check out Remote Development sometime but I don't do much remote file editing with any of my projects.

Also mentioning ESLint I use WesBos' config and I can't give it enough praise.

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Michael "lampe" Lazarski

Usually I add eslint to the project and then go with the style of the project. 😊👍

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Gulajava Ministudio

Here my current setup.

demo image

demo image
You can try extension that i use here :
Gitlens
indent-rainbow
Visual Studio IntelliCode
ES6 Snippets
Vetur
Relative Path
Bracket Pair Colorizer 2
Live Server
Path Intellisense

REST Client

And for theme and font, i'm using Mayukai Theme and Iosevka Mayukai Font

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Antonio Savage

I'd like to add that ctrl+X is actually the keyboard shortcut for Cut. You can then use crtl+V to paste the line you just cut somewhere else.

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Michael "lampe" Lazarski

Yeah, but in vs code if you don't have anything selected it will cut the complete line!

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Antonio Savage

ahh cool, good to know.

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Tabnine

Great article! Check out Tabnine AI code completions. It uses GPT-2 based models to predict the exact code the developer has intended to type and saves thousands of keystrokes. Works miraculously with VS Code and extremely boosts productivity

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Lars Jönsson

Super! I've added a lot from your list! Thanks you. :)

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Michael "lampe" Lazarski

Your welcome :)

Nice to hear to that it was useful for you :)

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tarifa-man

hello dear Michael
i am happy to read your text - i like it very much. Can you give us more hints to run VSCode or VSCodium on mx-linux:

cf : I use VSCode daily and it is widely used, i am shocked it is not in stable repo. Please add VSCode to the package list.

forum.mxlinux.org/viewtopic.php?f=...
we look forward to hear form you -regards tarifa

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RudiRod

I also mainly use Visual Studio code. And when something doesn’t work out for me, or any questions arise regarding web development in general, then I look for answers on such blogs - softwarereviewjournal.com. By the way, I highly recommend reading it, this information will be useful for both beginners and experienced web developers.

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Darko Mens

Thanks for sharing.
I have just started coding on my own and hope to get more help from you.
Just started with HTML/CSS
Will welcome any help from u.

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Umutcan Kuş

I like the cursor!
Thanks

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Michael "lampe" Lazarski

Thanks!
For me it's just more clear where the cursor is.
So I don't have to search for it on a big screen :D

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Dominik

Really cool Guide! Thanks👌

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Michael "lampe" Lazarski

Thanks :)

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carlosavellar

Very useful.

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Michael "lampe" Lazarski

Thenk you.

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jetdragon

very useful, thank you

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Michael "lampe" Lazarski

Thank you very much!
Have a nice day :)

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Ade Amos

Super useful article. Definitely implement these tips into my Dev environment.

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Michael "lampe" Lazarski

Nice to hear!

Have a fantastic day

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Faith Odonghanro

Nice article. Some really beautiful settings, thanks.

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Michael "lampe" Lazarski

thank you for your nice comment :)

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Juan Ignacio Borda

Nice article! Don't forget git graph!

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Michael "lampe" Lazarski

I'm old school when it comes to git. I use it in the terminal 🤣

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Geofrey Aduda

I love it

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Michael "lampe" Lazarski

Thank you very much :)

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Maciej Cieslik

Ctrl+Shift+P == F1 :)

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Michael "lampe" Lazarski

yeah that works too

For me its just faster to pres CTRL+SHIFT+P :D

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Thiago Araujo

Great tips. Thanks.

I am using Fira Code font (github.com/tonsky/FiraCode). It is better to view math symbols and operators.

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Michael "lampe" Lazarski

Fira is very popular.

But I had it to long :D

I needed something new!

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Akram Saouri

Thank you man, great setup

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Michael "lampe" Lazarski

No, Thank you :)

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Varun

Was not using "Import Cost" before.... I loved it. Great post

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Michael "lampe" Lazarski

Yeah it makes you think twice :)

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murd0c (he/him)

The editor configuration is very useful! Great tips!

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Michael "lampe" Lazarski

Thank you very much 😊

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Peter Witham

Fantastic list, I only recently discovered the Bracket color extension and import cost, super useful.

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Michael "lampe" Lazarski

Indeed they are!
And thank you 😊

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Ali A. Dhillon • Edited

Thanks man, I really love all these customizations and have applied almost all of them to my VS Code. One of the best thing was to smooth and animate the cursor.

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Michael "lampe" Lazarski

Right? The smooth animations are just way more pleasant to look at then the default :)

Nice to hear that you really liked it!

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Bruno A.

Wow, I use many of these extensions and settings quoted in the article. There are some that I did not know and will be useful to me. Thanks for sharing.

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Michael "lampe" Lazarski

Your welcome!

Which on you didn't know?

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Troy

Love that theme, almost as much as .. SOLARIZED DARK <3

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Michael "lampe" Lazarski

But just almost 🤣🤣

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Rakesh kv

Nice post. I tried few its really good
Thank you

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Michael "lampe" Lazarski

Thank you :)
I really appreciate it that you liked it :)

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Drew Roberts

Thank you. I needed something like this.

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Michael "lampe" Lazarski