Visual Studio Code 1.76 shines on usability, pytest

Microsoft has released Visual Studio Code 1.76, the latest monthly release of its open source programming editor. The update, also known as the February 2023 release, brings usability improvements to profiling and remote development and improves IntelliSense support for the pytest testing framework within the Pylance extension.

Profiles stabilized in VS Code 1.75 last month. With VS Code 1.76, the editor makes it easy to switch between profiles and indicates the current custom profile in the Manage Activity bar icon. Profiles support various VS Code configurations depending on the current project and workflow. Developers can now switch between profiles with the Profile: Switch Profile command on the Command Palette. You can also create profiles that include remote extensions.

For remote development, VS Code 1.76 brings usability improvements to the remote menu. There is now a default key combination for opening the remote menu, and the remote menu now makes it easy to see all the basic actions for opening a remote window at a glance. And with this release, Microsoft added a tutorial on the Remote Repositories extension to help users find, edit, and create quick commits on GitHub and Azure Repos without cloning locally.

Visual Studio Code 1.76 can be downloaded for Linux, Windows, and macOS from the Visual Studio Code website. Other highlights in VS Code 1.76 include:

• Microsoft’s Pylance extension for Python development adds IntelliSense support for Code Completion, Go To Definition, Find All References, and Symbol Rename for pytest test devices and parameterized arguments.
• An experimental capability allows the publisher to tokenize documents in a separate web worker, to improve responsiveness when dealing with large documents.
• The Explorer view container is now movable and can be placed in the secondary sidebar or bottom panel to allow for further customization of the workbench.
• The Comments view has a new Expand All command to combine with Collapse All.
• The kernel selector now displays the most recently used kernel by default.
• Accessibility enhancements include new audio cues and an improved terminal screen reader mode.
• TypeScript 5.0 is supported.

Since then, VS Code 1.76 has been followed by colon release updates. Version 1.76.1 addresses issues involving folder-specific schema associations on Windows, and version 1.76.2 addresses a Git median issue.