Visual Studio Code 1.71 is out with merge editor improvements and more

Microsoft has released the latest version of Visual Studio Code, its free development tool for budding programmers. Visual Studio Code version 1.71 comes with a few improvements, starting with the merge editor. Now, when one of your files has a conflict between your current changes and incoming changes, you’ll see a button that lets you quickly switch to the merge editor to see the two changes and make the necessary adaptations.

There have also been many other improvements around conflicts and the merge editor, such as restoring the previous conflict decorators that had been disabled in recent releases. Now, you can use the new experience merge editor or the old conflict experience at will, and even have both views side-by-side. Microsoft is also working on a new algorithm to improve conflicts.

Another new feature in this release is support for new FFmpeg codecs, including Vorbis, H.264, VP8, WAV, MP3, and Ogg. Previously, the FFmpeg library that shipped with VScode only supported the FLAC codec, so you should be able to play back a lot more audio and video files now.

There are numerous convenience changes in this release, too. Renaming files with just the keyboard is now easier, letting you press F2 to switch between the file name, extension, or entire selection; the editor now keeps the current scope in a line at the top of the editor UI; the Code Actions control has been overhauled to make it easier to find the actions you’re looking for; you can configure whether you want IntelliSense to always make suggestions or only at the start of a word.

On a more visual aspect, Visual Studio Code 1.71 also comes with rounded buttons to align more with the design language of current operating systems, and the window controls overlay nis now enabled by default. This allows you to use window controls such as Snap Assist in Windows 11 to organize your VS Code window.

To learn more about the latest release of Visual Studio Code, you may want to check the official changelog for version 1.71. There have also been updates to a wide range of extensions. If you want, you can head here to download the latest version of Visual Studio Code.

Source: Microsoft