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Developing Multi-Platform Apps with Visual Studio Code
Developing Multi-Platform Apps with Visual Studio Code

Developing Multi-Platform Apps with Visual Studio Code: Get up and running with VS Code by building multi-platform, cloud-native, and microservices-based apps

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Profile Icon Mehboob Ahmed Khan Profile Icon Habib
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Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Half star icon 4.9 (7 Ratings)
Paperback Sep 2020 334 pages 1st Edition
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Arrow left icon
Profile Icon Mehboob Ahmed Khan Profile Icon Habib
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Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Half star icon 4.9 (7 Ratings)
Paperback Sep 2020 334 pages 1st Edition
eBook
NZ$39.99 NZ$57.99
Paperback
NZ$71.99
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eBook
NZ$39.99 NZ$57.99
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Developing Multi-Platform Apps with Visual Studio Code

Chapter 1: Getting Started with Visual Studio Code

Visual Studio Code or, as it is mostly called, VS Code, is one of the most popular coding tools today. It focuses on being fast and extendible, and can build up to the needs of a wider developer community.

Earlier, the focus was on providing developers with an extensive development environment that could integrate the complete software development life cycle, from writing code to deploying the solution. To increase productivity, several in-built features were provided to automate repetitive tasks. Most of the environments supported a particular language and an abundance of prebuilt features for that language.

As the industry moved from thick installable clients to web-based applications, the choice of development platforms and tools also changed. These browser-based web applications that were developed using HyperText Markup Language (HTML), Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), and JavaScript did not require heavy integrated development...

Discussing editors and IDEs

Our focus in is this book is to explore and learn VS Code, but before we do that, let's discuss the difference between an editor and IDE and try to understand where and how VS Code is positioned for developers.

Over time, several languages and frameworks have become available for developers to work with. Along with these languages, a considerable amount of effort has been put in place to create the right tool to increase developer productivity and support the complete development life cycle.

These tools can be categorized into editors and IDEs.

Editors support a variety of languages, work around files and folders, and they are limited in terms of projects or solutions. They are lightweight and predominantly keyboard-centric, which allows developers to work faster.

IDEs support code editing, compiling, and debugging, as well as code execution. They are mainly specific to a particular language or a few selective languages. They usually work...

Discussing basic features of VS Code

With a brief introduction to development tools, we will now start off our learning journey by exploring some basic features of VS Code.

Files and folders

Unlike an IDE, VS Code does not depend on creating a solution or a project file. Your project is your folder, with subfolders and files in it. You can use the File menu and Open File... or Open Folder to start editing, as illustrated in the following screenshot:

Figure 1.1 – File menu in VS Code editor

Opening the folder will load all the files of the folder in VS Code. You can open multiple folders at a time. These folders will be available in the left pane of the editor.

Workspace

Often, your product will be organized into multiple interlinked projects. In this case, VS Code provides an option to combine these folders in a workspace. This way, when you open a workspace, it will open all the related project folders.

To do this, you can simply select...

Setting up VS Code

VS Code is a cross-platform editor and supports Windows, macOS, and Linux OS. You can start by visiting https://code.visualstudio.com.

Based on the operating system (OS) you are using, the website will prompt you to download for your OS. If you would like to download for another OS, you can click on other platforms or press the down arrow button that shows next to the OS name, as illustrated in the following screenshot:

Figure 1.11 – Different versions of VS Code for different OSes

There are two versions available for download. The stable version is updated every month with new features, whereas the insiders version is a nightly build that provides an early peak into the upcoming features. Both versions can run side by side on the same machine.

Launching VS Code

By now, you should have downloaded your copy of VS Code and followed the guided installation wizard to set up your environment. Next, let's start off by looking into different ways of launching VS Code and explore some command-line options.

The simplest way of starting VS Code is by running the code . command.

This will open up a new instance of VS Code. If this command does not work in your macOS installation, you can follow the next steps. For Linux, you can visit https://code.visualstudio.com and look for Setup | Linux.

Setting up the command line for macOS

If you already have a Bash profile, please skip Steps 1 and 2. Otherwise, proceed as follows:

  1. Write the cd ~/ command to go to your home folder.
  2. Write the touch .bash_profile command to create a new file.
  3. Then, on the terminal window, write the following commands:
    cat << EOF >> ~/.bash_profile
    #Add Visual Studio Code (code)
    Export PATH=''\$PATH:/Applications...

Basic editing in VS Code

VS Code comes with some great options, which will enable you to code faster. Let's look at some of the options.

Generating HTML

The Emmet 2.0 extension is built into the editor, and helps you to quickly write HTML code.

Here are some examples.

To create a table with five rows having two columns in each row, you can use the following statement:

table>tr*5>td*3 

This is what the table looks like:

Figure 1.29 – Generate HTML using the Emmet extension

As shown in the preceding screenshot, you will notice that VS Code starts showing you the HTML it will generate. Press Enter to generate the HTML.

In case you want to add a class attribute to the tag, use a dot (.) after the tag name. An example of this can be seen in the following code snippet:

table>tr*5.myclass>td*2

This will generate the same table as in Figure 1.29, with myclass placed as a class attribute for the <tr/> tag. The...

Editing and code navigation in VS Code

While writing code, developers are often working with several files at the same time. Quickly navigating between files or within the same file is an important feature.

VS Code offers multiple options for code navigation—let's explore them one by one.

Go to line

To move the cursor to a particular line and column, use the Goto (:) Line command, as illustrated in the following screenshot:

Figure 1.43 – Using the command palette to move cursor to a line and column

Go to symbol

To show the symbols used in your code and to navigate directly to a selected symbol, you can use Go to Symbol (@) in a File.

Also, while you are traversing, VS Code will highlight the code section, as illustrated in the following screenshot:

Figure 1.44 – Using the command palette to jump to a section of code

Figure 1.44 – Using the command palette to jump to a section of code

In the case of JavaScript, the command palette will show methods, as illustrated...

Summary

In this chapter, we started by looking at the editor and IDE space, and where VS Code falls. Then, we looked at the basic features of VS Code and moved on to setting up our environment. With VS Code being a multiplatform editor, we explained some steps related to macOS, and also provided guidance in case you are using a Linux OS. Next, we explored multiple ways of launching VS Code and also looked at several command-line options. Explaining the overall layout, we then moved on to showcasing some editing and code refactoring features. Finally, we closed out the chapter by looking at quick code navigation features.

By the end of this chapter, you should now have a basic background about development tools and a more detailed knowledge of VS Code as an editor. We learned about the basic features, layout, editing, and code navigation options.

Next, we will look in further detail at the VS Code extensions framework and how it can help you in enhancing your development experience...

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Key benefits

  • Leverage the power of the free, cross-platform, and highly customizable code editor to build modern web and cloud applications
  • Edit, debug and deploy on Microsoft Azure with Visual Studio Code
  • Learn how to customize features and install a wide variety of third-party extensions

Description

Microsoft Visual Studio Code is a powerful, lightweight code editor for modern web and cloud development. It is a source code editor that can be used with a variety of programming languages, which works on multiple platforms such as Linux, Windows, and macOS. This book provides extensive coverage of the tools, functionalities, and extensions available within the VS Code environment that will help you build multi-platform apps with ease. You’ll start with the installation of VS Code and learn about various tools and features that are essential for development. Progressing through the chapters, you'll explore the user interface while understanding tips and tricks for increasing productivity. Next, you’ll delve into VS Code extensions and discover how they can make life easier for developers. Later, the book shows you how to develop a sample application with different programming languages, tools, and runtimes to display how VS code can be used effectively for development, before helping you get to grips with source code version management and deployment on Azure with VS Code. Finally, you’ll build on your skills by focusing on remote development with VS Code. By the end of this book, you’ll have the knowledge you need to use Visual Studio Code as your primary tool for software development.

Who is this book for?

This book is for software developers, web developers and polyglot programmers, who are working with any language or framework such as Python, Java, Node.js, or .NET and are looking to learn how they can create multi-platform, microservices based, cloud-native applications while effectively using Visual Studio Code for editing, debugging, version management and deployment. Basic software development skills are a must to grasp the concepts covered in this book.

What you will learn

  • Explore various editing, formatting, and navigational features of VS Code
  • Understand how to add, delete, and configure extensions in VS Code
  • Develop web APIs using Node.js, Java, and Python in VS Code
  • Develop background service in .NET Core and explore Dapr
  • Delve into debugging techniques such as breakpoints, log points, and data inspection
  • Use Git with Azure DevOps to share and synchronize code with VS Code
  • Create custom extensions in VS Code to increase developer productivity
  • Understand the concepts of remote development using VS Code

Product Details

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Publication date : Sep 18, 2020
Length: 334 pages
Edition : 1st
Language : English
ISBN-13 : 9781838822934
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Length: 334 pages
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Language : English
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Table of Contents

14 Chapters
Section 1: Introduction to Visual Studio Code Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Chapter 1: Getting Started with Visual Studio Code Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Chapter 2: Extensions in Visual Studio Code Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Section 2: Developing Microservices-Based Applications in Visual Studio Code Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Chapter 3: Building a Multi-Platform Backend Using Visual Studio Code Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Chapter 4: Building a Service in .NET Core and Exploring Dapr Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Chapter 5: Building a Web-Based Frontend Application with Angular Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Chapter 6: Debugging Techniques Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Chapter 7: Deploying Applications on Azure Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Chapter 8: Git and Azure DevOps Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Section 3: Advanced Topics on Visual Studio Code Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Chapter 9: Creating Custom Extensions in Visual Studio Code Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Chapter 10: Remote Development in Visual Studio Code Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Other Books You May Enjoy Chevron down icon Chevron up icon

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Amazon Customer Dec 02, 2020
Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon 5
Visual studio code is the most used open source IDE by for developing & configuring multi\cross platform apps. I do advice anyone to discover the incredibly power of visual studio code available the below book. Personally, I'm using visual studio code from years but I was not aware of many nice features available there. It doesn't matter which language you are writing or which framework you are using as all of this is available with details on the below book.
Amazon Verified review Amazon
Ahmed Dec 02, 2020
Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon 5
Great book. covered most of the major points.
Amazon Verified review Amazon
Sujanesh Jasti Nov 10, 2020
Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon 5
As a developer myself, taking a look at this book reinforced the ideas and methods I have learned over the many years I have been working.The book starts off with an introduction to VS Code. If you haven't had a hands-on experience with the platform then this is a great place to start. Pact offers samples that you are able to use and play around with. This is a great way to experience coding hands-on. This makes it a great book to start off with and can be great for anyone.It has been really useful to understand the backend works of the platform and also understanding how we can make multi-platform apps with VS Code. The book gives a high-level idea of building these kinds of applications and the reader is guided with the best way to develop many complex apps.This is a great book for beginners and advanced developers to refresh the ideas for building multiple types of applications using VS Code.It is a great resource and has helped me so much when I couldn't find an answer to something online right away, and knowing that this book is with me all the time, I knew exactly what I needed to know to develop a service with .NET and get the environment started.I recommend this book to people who want to get started right away but don't know where to begin. This is a great way to get your hands-on experience while also learning the mechanics of what goes on in a full-fledged application.
Amazon Verified review Amazon
Joe Dec 18, 2020
Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon 5
I was looking for a such a book to understand Visual Studio Code.The Multi-cursor editing amongst other basic editing tools is a great help especially when having to select multiple occurrences of the same text and edit at the same time. The instructions are fully detailed with plenty of screenshots to help drive the points across. The shortcuts shown in the book are great to navigate Visual Studio Code and provide great time savers. The code snippets are also very helpful at limiting the amount of time taken to write the code. The themes and extensions are great I especially liked the way the author teaches you how to create a new extensions.json file with your recommended extensions. Learning how to install extensions from the CLI is of course very valuable information. I am already a certified Azure Administrator however still not being able to land a job in that field. Section 2 was a great refresher course in Azure and have a better understanding of Azure Devops and Angular frameworks now. Debugging practices and examples are on point. I was unable to completely grasp the concept of using containers however now I understand and know how Docker and Kubernetes work. I greatly applaud the author of this book and have faith that with the knowledge attained by reading and following the examples on Developing Multiplatform Apps with Visual Studio Code, that I am now ready to pass any future job interviews and have faith that I will be be able to attain a job as a Cloud Administrator.
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Mohith Kumar Feb 16, 2021
Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon 5
This book is good if you code in multiple languages and want to become familiar with visual studio code and it's offerings!I have enjoyed reading all the chapters! My favorite is where the author deep dives into how to debug code like node.js with vscode!Also it has a chapter around how to build your own visualstudio extensions that is useful!
Amazon Verified review Amazon
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