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How to Open VSCodium from command line macOS

This is way easier than Visual Studio Code.

If you installed VSCodium using Homebrew, it will work right away. The only difference is the name of it.

It’s actually easy to remember. For both VSCode and VSCodium, the command line is the name without the “VS.” So instead of code in Visual Studio Code, it’s codium for VSCodium.

So in Terminal, you can type in the following:

% codium .

And VSCodium will open up and load all the contents in that folder where you type in that codium . command.

Further Reading

VSCodium, a Free Version of Visual Studio Code
How to Open Visual Studio Code from command line macOS

VSCodium, a Free Version of Visual Studio Code

Another code editor, very similar to Visual Studio Code. In fact, it’s the same build from Microsoft’s vscode repository without the Telemetry. For all intents and purposes, VSCodium looks almost identical to VS Code as you can see from the screenshot below:

VS Code (left) vs. VSCodium (right)

VS Code (left) vs. VSCodium (right)

So what’s the difference between the two?

In short, VSCodium has much less Telemetry report sent to Microsoft. It is the “binary releases of VS Code without MS branding/telemetry/licensing.”

This repository contains build files to generate free release binaries of Microsoft’s VS Code. When we speak of “free software”, we’re talking about freedom, not price.

Microsoft’s releases of Visual Studio Code are licensed under this not-FLOSS license and contain telemetry/tracking. According to this comment from a Visual Studio Code maintainer:

When we [Microsoft] build Visual Studio Code, we do exactly this. We clone the vscode repository, we lay down a customized product.json that has Microsoft specific functionality (telemetry, gallery, logo, etc.), and then produce a build that we release under our license.

When you clone and build from the vscode repo, none of these endpoints are configured in the default product.json. Therefore, you generate a “clean” build, without the Microsoft customizations, which is by default licensed under the MIT license

Should I Use It?

It’s not a black and white thing but the good news is you can always use both and decide later.

The argument is VSCodium is more private, the opposite argument is without Telemetry, Microsoft wouldn’t be able to improve the product and make it available for free. Just make sure you understand the pros and cons of using each product.

How to Install

The easiest way for Mac installation is with Homebrew.

If you have Homebrew installed, just open Terminal and type the following:

brew install --cask vscodium

The benefit of installing using Homebrew is that unlike Visual Studio Code, opening vscodium from a command line works right from the get go.

For the other platforms, please read VSCodium: Download/Install

Further Reading

VSCodium
How to Open VSCodium from command line macOS
VSCodium: Why Does This Exist
VSCodium: Getting all the Telemetry Out

How to Enable Font Ligatures in Visual Studio Code

Ligatures are special characters in a font that combine two or more characters into one.

For example, if you use a ligatured font, whenever you type != it will become ≠.

Aside from the arguments whether using a ligatured font is a good or bad thing in your code, here’s what you need to do if you want to enable it in Visual Studio Code.

For this example, we’ll use Cascadia Code (NOT Cascade as shown in the screenshots) and Fira Code. If you want to follow along, you can download the fonts by using the download link below.

On macOS, instead of downloading and installing the fonts manually, you can use Homebrew instead, which is way easier and quicker.

  1. Launch Visual Studio Code.
  2. Press CTRL+, (or Cmd ⌘+, on macOS) to open Settings.

  3. Under Settings, you can see and edit what font you want to use. The way it’s setup now, Cascadia Code is prioritized and Fira Code is used only if Cascadia Code is not available.

    Visual Studio Code Font Family in Settings

  4. To enable the ligatures though, we need to edit the settings.json file. We can type in the word “ligatures” in the Search settings box. Then click on the link Edit in settings.json to open the json file.

    Visual Studio Code Font Ligatures in settings.json

  5. You can add editor.fontLigatures and set it to true under the editor.fontFamily.

    Visual Studio Code font in settings.json

    {
  "editor.fontFamily": "'Cascadia Code', 'Fira Code'",
  "editor.fontLigatures": true,

[deleted for brevity]

}
  6. Close the settings.json tab and you should be able to see the ligatures.

Now, we can test if we can see the font ligatures work.

Testing font ligatures in Visual Studio Code

If you did not see any change, make sure you restart Visual Studio Code before trying it again.

This setting also works for Visual Studio Codium.

Download

Fira Code: free monospaced font with programming ligatures
Microsoft Cascadia Code Font

Further Reading

Ligatures in Programming Fonts are a Terrible Idea
How to Install Fonts on macOS using Homebrew

How to Add Comma to Each Line Using Visual Studio Code or Sublime Text

Sometimes the simplest thing is really taken for granted and we take the long route to do the simplest thing. We received a CSV with thousands of ID numbers that will be used to update a database table. The data would look like the following:

  87295
  86719
  31695
  94836
  17957
  69783
  57168
  96874
  12853
  92816
  ...
  [deleted for brevity]
  ...

Open a text file in Visual Studio Code

The goal is just to add a comma at the end of each line so it can be used to update data in a database table.

In the past, we would probably write a macro module in Excel, but other than a security risk, it’s overcomplicating a simple task.

Using either Visual Studio Code or Sublime Text, we can accomplish this task in a matter of seconds. No writing macros required.

1. Use the Search and Replace Control

This works the same way in both Visual Studio Code and Sublime Text. The only difference is the shortcuts between PC and Mac.

PC

  1. Press CTRL+H for Replace.
  2. Type in $ in Find, and , in Replace.
  3. Make sure Regular Expression is turned on (ALT+R)
  4. Replace All by pressing CTRL+ALT+ENTER.

Mac

  1. Press Option+Command+F for Replace.
  2. Type in $ in Find, and , in Replace.
  3. Make sure Regular Expression is turned on (Option+Command+R)
  4. Replace All by pressing Option+Command+ENTER.

Visual Studio Code Search and Replace All with Regex

2. Use Multi-Line Editing

Visual Studio Code

  1. Select all by pressing CTRL+A (or Command+A for Mac).
  2. From Selection, choose Add Cursors to Line Ends by pressing SHIFT+ALT+I (or SHIFT+OPTION+I).
  3. Type the Comma character.

Visual Studio Code Selection Add Cursors to Line Ends

Sublime Text

  1. Select all by pressing CTRL+A (or Command+A for Mac).
  2. From Selection, choose Split into Lines by pressing CTRL+SHIFT+L (or COMMAND+SHIFT+L).
  3. Move the cursors at the end of lines by pressing End on Windows or Right Arrow on macOS.
  4. Type the Comma character.

Whatever method you use, the end result will look like the following:

Text file with commas in Visual Studio Code

Further Reading

How to Reassign Shortcut Key for Column Selection in Visual Studio Code
How to Reassign Column Selection Shortcut Keys in Sublime Text
Adding Comma to Each Line Using Sublime Text 2
How to Open Visual Studio Code from command line macOS

How to Open Visual Studio Code from command line macOS

When you use Visual Studio Code on Windows, one handy feature is you can always call it from the command line by typing “code .” (without the quotes) in the folder where you want to work on.

But when you try that on macOS Terminal, this is what you get:

zsh: command not found: code

Not to worry, the same feature can be had on macOS but it’s just not installed by default. In order to do so, we need to do a one-time setup from Visual Studio Code.

  1. Launch Visual Studio Code.
  2. Press Cmd ⌘ + Shift ⇧ + P to open the Command Palette.

  3. Type in shell command and select the Shell command: Install ‘code’ command in PATH to install it.

    Visual Studio Code Command Palette - Shell Command code

  4. A screen will pop up stating:

    Code will now prompt with 'osascript' for Administrator privileges to install the shell command.

    Just click OK and authorize it.

Now, the “code .” command works the same way in macOS Terminal as it is on Windows Command Prompt.

If you use VSCodium, you don’t need to do any kinds of setup, it works right away.

Further Reading

How to Use Visual Code as Default Editor in Git
How to Enable Font Ligatures in Visual Studio Code
How to Reassign Shortcut Key for Column Selection in Visual Studio Code
How to Setup Visual Studio Code for Hugo Static Site Generator

Download

Visual Studio Code

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