Microsoft has released Visual Studio Code (VS Code) 1.98 with numerous Copilot updates including a preview of Copilot Vision, enabling developers to upload screenshots for debugging or to generate user interface code. Some Linux users though report “continuous crashing” with the new update.
A quick read of the release notes gives the impression that most of the new features are related to GitHub Copilot, an AI assistant which has a limited free mode.
One eye-catching feature is Copilot Vision, now in preview, which lets developers attach images in Copilot chat. This could be to illustrate an error, or to ask Copilot to suggest HTML and CSS code to implement a UI (user interface) mock-up. The “Ask Copilot” panel has a paperclip icon for adding context, including an option to screenshot the VS Code window; or developers can paste images from the clipboard. Currently this only works with the GPT 4o model, but support for other models will be added soon.
A handy feature for users worried about their Copilot quota is the experimental Copilot Status panel, which shows how much quota remains and when it resets.
Copilot Agent mode, which remains experimental, is now rolling out to the stable version, and has the ability to complete end-to-end tasks. Improvements include the ability to edit the Copilot-suggested terminal commands before they are executed.
Copilot Next Edit suggestions have moved from experimental to preview status, and now have a collapsed mode where only an indicator shows if a suggestion is available. Pressing Tab reviews the suggestion. Collapsed mode is disabled by default but can be turned on in settings.
Copilot Edits now has the ability, in preview, to edit notebook files as well as code files. This feature is only available in the preview VS Code Insiders for now.
Is Microsoft now focused mainly on Copilot for VS Code updates? This is partly a matter of presentation, with the company choosing to put Copilot updates before all others in its update postings. There are non-Copilot updates in this release, including that the editor is now built with Electron 34, released in January. VS Code no longer supports macOS 10.15 (Catalina).
One possibly contentious change is that on Linux, the custom title bar is now enabled by default. This adds layout controls and more to the title bar, but because it is custom-drawn may look jarring; there is an option to configure window.titleBarStyle to native.
A useful addition to the peek view, which enables a quick look at definitions, implementations and references for a code element, is that developers can now drag entries from the view to open them in a separate editor.
Discarding an untracked file will now move it to the recycle bin where possible, enabling recovery, since apparently some developers lost data through not understanding that such files are permanently deleted.
TypeScript 5.8, released at the end of February, is now included with language and tooling improvements.
There is more in the release notes; yet it is hard to escape the thought that Microsoft is investing in Copilot features at the expense of other changes that developers might value more.
The top feedback requests are nothing to do with Copilot. Currently the most-wanted request is to be able to change the size and font of the workbench, an issue raised in November 2015 and with over 3,000 upvotes. Other top requests are customization of mouse shortcuts, showing all the errors and warnings for JavaScript and TypeScript files in a project, a VIM mode, macro recording, and VS Code for iPad.
VS Code is a free tool with huge value for millions of developers. It is understandable that Microsoft-owned GitHub takes advantage of its popularity to promote Copilot, but that popularity could be undermined if it neglects other issues.
Linux uses should be wary of this release for a different reason. Multiple users have complained about VS Code “continually crashing” after the update. “This blocker is really showstopper” said an affected developer; though it will likely be fixed soon.