A pair of text editors popular among Linux users have seen new updates.
Github’s Atom text editor and Microsoft’s Visual Studio Code (VS Code) both have updated versions available to download.
In this post we give a condensed run down of the major changes and improvements available in each.
Visual Studio Code 1.15
Microsoft Visual Studio Code has hit version 1.15, with a change-log chock full of improvements.
A new color picker makes it easy create or adjust colors in html, css, sass and less files.
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Auto-indentation is enabled by default in this build, which should make working in languages that support proper indentation rules, like json and css, a tad quicker.
There are major improvements in the handling of large files, which in turn helps to improve memory usage:
“Any file that is over 30MB or over 300K lines will now be considered a large file and will be handled specially in some circumstances. By disabling certain features for large files, for example tokenization, line guides, and wrapping or folding, we were able to optimize memory usage, in some cases, by as much as 50%,” they say.
Other changes include options to customize the editor syntax highlighting colors without creating a full color theme; support for Markdown preview plugins; and improved diff editor results.
As always, the official release notes give a comprehensively detailed look at everything new, so check them out.
Visual Studio Code 1.15 is available to download from the official VS Code website. A Snap version is also available.
Atom 1.19
The latest stable release, Atom 1.19 ships with improved responsiveness and memory usage.
“Saving a file now happens asynchronously without blocking the UI, so that you can move smoothly from one task to the next,” the team behind the editor say in a release announcement.
“Large files now consume less memory, marking another step in our continued drive to provide an excellent experience for all files big and small.”
This update also sees the text editor’s rendering layer rewritten; includes improved trailing whitespace removal; and brings back the ability for escape to return focus to the center. Atom 1.19 is updated to use Electron 1.6.9.
Atom 1.19 is available to download from Github.