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Visual Studio Tips

Example settings.json for VS Code

Posted by matteskolin on

Microsoft Documentation on VS Code Settings Here

I thought It would be fun to share my settings.json file. The number of available settings in VS Code is truly staggering. In the documentation above, the default settings example is near three thousand lines long!

On Windows, the settings file is located here:
%APPDATA%\Code\User\settings.json

And on my machine specifically,
C:\Users\matte\AppData\Roaming\Code\User\settings.json

I also save this in my Microsoft OneDrive as a backup and a way for me to quickly setup on new machines.

These settings control many aspects of the IDE as well as extensions.

Below is the settings.json file that I use with comments.

{
    //extension[background] - disables background image
    "background.enabled": false,

    //shows tool bar on left side of screen with buttons for Tests, Solution Explorer, Extensions, Debug, etc.
    "workbench.activityBar.visible": true,

    //default zoom
    "window.zoomLevel": 1.5,

    //very important if you are a vim user. Taking back control of specific control keys as vim takes over many of them
    "vim.handleKeys":{
      "<C-k>":false,
      "<C-a>":false,
      "<C-t>":false,
      "<C-f>":false,
      "<C-c>":false,
      "<C-v>":false,
      "<C-x>":false,
      "<C-y>":false,
      "<C-h>":false,
      "<C-d>":false,
      "<C-b>":false
    },

    //my favorite key binding in vim - this will allow you to type "jk" to exist insert mode, instead of awkwardly reaching for escape key
    "vim.insertModeKeyBindings": [
    {
      "before": ["j", "k"],
      "after": ["<Esc>"]
    }
  ],
  "mssql.connections": [
    {
      "server": "DESKTOP-3CUUUOC",
      "database": "",
      "authenticationType": "Integrated",
      "profileName": "LOCAL_INSTANCE",
      "password": ""
    }
  ],

  //nice setting to hide the wierd code map that is often useless and hard to read
  "editor.minimap.enabled": false,

  "editor.showFoldingControls": "mouseover",
  "editor.folding": true,
  "editor.foldingStrategy": "auto",

  //unbelievable helpful fix for moving mouse through folds
  "vim.foldfix":true, 

  //hide preview
  "workbench.editor.enablePreview": false,
  "[csharp]": {
    "editor.defaultFormatter": "ms-dotnettools.csharp"
  },
  "vssolution.xmlClosingTagSpace": false
}
Visual Studio Tips

VS Code Extension Review: Music Time

Posted by matteskolin on

https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=softwaredotcom.music-time

I just started playing around with this Music extension for VS Code.

Music Time is an open source plugin that curates and launches playlists for coding right from your editor. The extension requires a spotify account.

There is an incredible amount of features packed into this extension. I am very surprised that this is currently a free extension. I really like the idea of being able to control my music from within the coding Window. For me, the less often I need to change between applications, the more productive I am, as I am not cycling through disparate UIs, constantly having to reorient myself to what I am looking at.

the AI is supposed to help the user select music that is the most productive. There are even dashboards and graphs to track what tracks, and even what musical elements (tempo, genre, rhythm) correlate with coding related metrics (lines of code, keystrokes, etc).

Above is the mode selector. Once a mood is selected, song recommendations for the selected mood appear right in the VS Code editor window under recommendations.


I am actually enjoying this interface so far more than the actual Spotify interface. I dislike how Spotify is full of images, which can become distracting when looking for music. I may start using this extension for all my music listening!

Will continue to use the extension and update..