Now you know why VSCode is awesome, and why it’s probably the best choice for you too. You probably can’t wait to install it, right? Let’s explore how to install VSCode and how to start it.
Installing VSCode
Download from the official site
VSCode can be downloaded for free from this website. It’s available for the following platforms:
- Windows
- Linux
- MacOS
Make sure you download the correct binary for your platform. The website will detect your platform automatically, so that shouldn’t be too hard!
After downloading, open the file and follow the steps to install it on your system.
Use OS specific package manager
On Linux and MacOS, you can use good alternatives to install VSCode. E.g., if you are a Homebrew user, you can install the vscode cask with:
$ brew install --cask visual-studio-code
If you’re on Ubuntu, you might want to use snap instead. All these methods are fine, and probably even better than downloading it manually.
Starting VSCode
There are two ways of starting VSCode:
- Looking it up in the menu and clicking it
- Starting it from the command-line
Looking it up in the menu
Most operating systems have a menu system, e.g.:
- The start menu on Windows
- The launcher on MacOS
- Similar functionality on Linux, e.g. in the Gnome Shell.
If you want to open up VSCode, simply look it up and click the icon.
Starting it from the command-line
The big advantage of starting VSCode from the command-line is that you can directly pass it a path or file to open. On all platforms, you can open the current directory as a project in VSCode, simply by typing:
$ code .
You can use the code command to open a specific file as well:
$ code myscript.py