I see more and more youtubers and instructors coding using Visual Studio Code. I was a bit reluctant at first, but after trying it, there is no doubt ! VSCode is the best text editor I encounter to date. Free, cross platform, cross language, terminal integrated, hundreds of extentions that will help your productivity, and hundreds more for cosmetic changes.

Install on Windows

Before reading this post, I suggest you follow Ubuntu on Windows (WSL).

• Open web browser
• Visit code
• Download 'Windows x64' installer
• Open the installer
• Follow installation instructions...

Install on MacOS

Before reading this post, I suggest you follow Improved Shell (MacOS).

• Open 'Terminal'
• Install VSCode from Homebrew

brew install --cask visual-studio-code

• Open 'Visual Studio Code'
• Authorise VSCode to access your folders.
• Trust the author

Colors

• Navigate the menu 'Code/Preferences/Color Themes'
• Search for 'Tomorrow'
• Click on 'Browse Additional Color Themes...'
• Select 'Base16 Tomorrow'

Extensions

• Navigate to 'Extensions'
• Install 'Material Icon Theme': a set of icons to help identify file extensions
• Install 'Git Graph': an visual interface to handle branches and commits
• Install 'Live Server': Launch a development local server with live reload feature for static & dynamic pages
• Install 'Prettier': opinionated code formatter that enforces a consistent style, tabulations and maximum line length at each save.
• Install 'Markdownlint': a code formatter that enforce consistent style for markdown files
• Install 'Python': handy package of python related extentions
• -for Windows only- Install 'Remote - WSL': Connect VSCode terminal to WSL.

Settings

• Navigate the menu 'Code/Preferences/Settings'
• Set 'Editor: Tab Size' to 2
• Set 'Files: Eol' to \n
• Set 'Font Family:' to MesloLGS NF