v1.4.0

New HTML content view commands enabling custom UI tabs

You can now show editor tabs with custom HTML-based UI by using the new HTML content view commands! This is the first step toward UI extensions for VS Code written in PowerShell.

Here's an example:

$view = New-VSCodeHtmlContentView -Title "My Custom View" -ShowInColumn One
Set-VSCodeHtmlContentView -View $view -Content "<h1>Hello world!</h1>"
Write-VSCodeHtmlContentView $view -Content "<b>I'm adding new content!</b><br />"

And here's the result:

Check out the cmdlet help for the following commands to learn more:

• New-VSCodeHtmlContentView
• Show-VSCodeHtmlContentView
• Close-VSCodeHtmlContentView
• Set-VSCodeHtmlContentView
• Write-VSCodeHtmlContentView

Since this is a first release, we've restricted the use of JavaScript inside of the HTML. We will add this capability in a future release!

Code formatting setting presets for common styles

We've now added code formatting presets for the most common code style conventions used in the PowerShell community. You can now set the powershell.codeFormatting.preset setting to one of the following presets:

• OTBS - Known as the "One True Brace Style". Causes else, catch, and other keywords to be "cuddled", keeping them on the same line as the previous closing brace:

  if ($var -eq $true) {
    # Do the thing
  } else {
    # Do something else
  }

• Stroustrup - Causes beginning curly braces to be placed on the same line as the statement:

  if ($var -eq $true) {
    # Do the thing
  }
  else {
    # Do something else
  }

• Allman - All curly braces are preceded by a newline:

  if ($var -eq $true)
  {
    # Do the thing
  }
  else
  {
    # Do something else
  }

• Custom - Allows full customization of the code formatting settings.

In addition, code formatting now respects your editor.insertSpaces and editor.tabSize settings!

Debugging in a temporary PowerShell Integrated Console

We've added the ability to debug your PowerShell code in a temporary PowerShell Integrated Console so that you have a fresh runspace and PowerShell process each time you hit F5!

This setting is necessary if you are developing with PowerShell 5 classes or modules using .NET assemblies because .NET types cannot be reloaded inside of the same PowerShell process. This new setting
saves you from reloading your PowerShell session each time you debug your code!

You can configure this behavior in two ways:

• Use the launch.json configuration parameter createTemporaryIntegratedConsole:

  {
    "type": "PowerShell",
    "request": "launch",
    "name": "PowerShell Launch Current File in Temporary Console",
    "script": "${file}",
    "args": [],
    "cwd": "${file}",
    "createTemporaryIntegratedConsole": true
  },

• Configure the setting powershell.debugging.createTemporaryIntegratedConsole:

  "powershell.debugging.createTemporaryIntegratedConsole": true,

The default value for these settings is false, meaning that the temporary console behavior is opt-in.

Configuring the user or workspace setting will cause all debugging sessions to be run in a temporary Integrated Console so it's useful if you would prefer this to be the default behavior. The launch.json setting overrides the user setting so you can always customize the behavior for a specific launch configuration.

NewFile() API and Out-CurrentFile command

You can now create a new untitled file from within the Integrated Console by using the $psEditor.Workspace.NewFile() command! Also, you can send the formatted output of any PowerShell command to the current file by using the Out-CurrentFile command:

Get-Process | Out-CurrentFile

Special thanks to Doug Finke for the contribution!

Other fixes and improvements

• #881 - When you select a different PowerShell version in the session menu, your choice is persisted to the powershell.powerShellExePath setting.

• #891 - Pester CodeLenses now run tests without string interpolation of test names