vscode-tips

Useful tips & tricks for Visual Studio Code. Mostly for me, but public so others might enjoy.

Important

I'm on a mac, results may vary

.NET Logging

Full set of tips at /dotnet/logging.md

In vs code, debug provider and the console provider both log to the debug console. This ends up duplicating all the logs, in different formats, which makes it difficult to read and understand. To make things worse they're not in color 🙄.

I've spent way too much time figuring out how to go from this:

To this:

If you're interested in doing the same (or something in between), check out /dotnet/logging.md

Other settings

I've found that a couple more settings will reduce the noise in your logs when developing locally:

//settings.json
{
  "csharp.debug.logging.moduleLoad": false,
  "csharp.debug.logging.exceptions": false
}

Settings

I'm not trying to tell you how to live your life. But here are some settings that I've found make life more delightful (and more importantly, get the stuff that I don't care about, out of my way).

🔍 Explorer settings

Here are some Explorer settings that I find useful for .NET:

// settings.json
{
  "explorer.fileNesting.enabled": true,
  "explorer.fileNesting.expand": false,
  "explorer.fileNesting.patterns": {
    // global
    "README.md": ".gitignore, .gitattributes, LICENSE, SECURITY.md, SUPPORT.md, CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md",
    "dockerfile": ".dockerignore",
    // ts, js
    ".env": ".env.development, .env.production",
    "*.tsx": "${capture}.ts, ${capture}.test.tsx, ${capture}.css",
    ".*rc.yml": ".${capture}ignore",
    ".*rc.js": ".${capture}ignore",
    // .net
    "*.cs": "I${capture}.cs,",
    "*.csproj": "appsettings.json, dockerfile, host.json, local.settings.json, .gitignore",
    "appsettings.json": "appsettings.development.json, appsettings.production.json"
  }
}

The new C# DevKit has a pretty nice Explorer, but since I bounce around to different programming languages (and I've taken the time to set up vscode's Explorer just the way I like it), I tend to use vscode's Explorer.

🗄️ Files settings

// settings.json
{
  // see-ya squigglies
  "files.associations": {
    "appsettings.*.json": "jsonc",
    "local.settings.json": "jsonc",
    "launchSettings.json": "jsonc"
  },
  "files.exclude": {
    "**/.vs": true,
    "**/bin": true,
    "**/obj": true,
    "**/.git": true,
    "**/.DS_Store": true,
    "**/__pycache__": true,
    "**/**.dist-info": true,
    "**/node_modules": true
  }
}

✏️ Editor settings

I've found that all of the tool trying to help me type my next line of code, end up competing and creating a poor experience. The editor settings below are just a subset of my editor settings, but these are the settings that I've found make my active coding experience most efficient (i.e. I can intuitively accept suggestions from intellicode or copilot):

{
  "editor.emptySelectionClipboard": false, // why the hell is this even a thing
  "editor.acceptSuggestionOnCommitCharacter": false,
  "editor.inlineSuggest.enabled": true,
  "editor.parameterHints.cycle": true,
  "editor.suggest.localityBonus": true,
  "editor.suggest.preview": true,
  "editor.suggest.matchOnWordStartOnly": false,
  "editor.suggest.showStatusBar": true,
  "editor.suggestSelection": "first",
  "editor.snippetSuggestions": "bottom",
  "editor.tabCompletion": "on",

  "github.copilot.editor.enableAutoCompletions": true,

  "editor.minimap.autohide": true,
  "editor.minimap.enabled": false, // I tend to toggle this
  "editor.minimap.showSlider": "always"
}

📏 Rulers

I write a lot of code that ends up on GitHub; prototypes, samples, customer development, etc.
On github.com depending on settings this sentence should be just about full-with across the readme without wrapping.

# and the first line just fits in a code block
I write a lot of code that ends up on GitHub; prototypes, samples, customer development, etc.

This is what these rulers are for. They represent (approx) widths of different renderings on github.com (gists, readme, classic code view, etc.). You'll may need to change the color.

// settings.json
{
  "editor.rulers": [
    { "column": 99, "color": "#2e2e2e" },
    { "column": 112, "color": "#2e2e2e" },
    { "column": 117, "color": "#2e2e2e" },
    { "column": 139, "color": "#2e2e2e" },
    { "column": 177, "color": "#2e2e2e" },
    { "column": 250, "color": "#2e2e2e" }
  ]
}