Visual Studio Code 1.77, published March 30 as the March 2023 version of Microsoft’s extensible code editor, introduces a preview of deeper integration with the GitHub Copilot AI coding assistant, including inline suggestions and chat capabilities.
The VS Code update also brings TypeScript/JavaScript switch case completions, helping users scaffold out switch statements over literal types in either programming language. Type case inside of the switch statement and accept the suggestion for case … to automatically insert cases for all values of this type. But note this only works when the value being switched over is either a union or literal type.
Also in VS Code 1.77, users can try out GitHub Copilot features such as inline suggestions, a chat view to ask for help, and inline chat. Developers can try the new capabilities by using the GitHub Copilot Nightly extension and the VS Code Insiders Build. For chat capabilities, developers also must sign up for the GitHub Copilot Chat waitlist. This deeper integration with Copilot is in a preview state.
A new GitHub integration now allows VS Code users to copy deep links for an editor line or range from the editor gutter when working in a GitHub repository. In the desktop version of VS Code, developers need to install the GitHub Pull Requests and Issues extension to create GitHub Permalinks and HEAD links from the editor gutter. In vscode.dev, the online version of VS Code, deep links for GitHub repos are available out of the box.
Visual Studio Code 1.77 can be downloaded for Windows, Linux, or macOS from the project website. Also in VS Code 1.77:
- Users can more conveniently refactor Python code with the Pylance extension for Python language support. This is done via a new “Move symbol to” Code Action.
- The editor now can recommend extensions based on file content. For example, if a Python file is opened that has notebook cells syntax, the editor recommends the Jupyter extension to deal with these cells.
- Developers can enable “Format on save” for notebooks, which will format the entire notebook when saved.
VS Code 1.77 follows the release earlier this month of VS Code 1.76, which brought usability enhancements to configuration profiles and remote development.