In good news for developers, Microsoft has announced the general availability of the Edge Dev Tools for VS Code extensions. In 2019, Microsoft came up with the idea of Elements for VS Code as an experiment. This way, web developers can embed developer tools from the Edge web browser into Visual Studio Code.
Edge Tools for VS Code extensions now available
Finally, what kicked off as the experimental initiative last year has exited the preview phase. According to the company, the new Microsoft Edge Tools for VS Code extension has been significantly improved since its early days. In a recent blog post, Microsoft Edge folks had this to say:
“With this release, we’ve merged the functionality of two experimental extensions that brought Developer Tools functionality to Visual Studio Code: The Elements and the Network extension. We also made it easier to contribute and build the extension yourself and smoothed out some of the rough edges.”
There are a number of reasons why developers might want to embed developer tools from Edge into the Visual Studio Code. We take a look:
Microsoft provides developers with a light-weight coding environment in the form of Visual Studio Code. But when it comes to building web applications, coding isn’t the only thing that matters. For instance, developers’ workflow also consists of several other tasks and objectives such as customizing the look and feel of their products for the web.
This will also eliminate the need for switching between code editor and browser, speeding up the workflow to some extent. This is where the Edge Developer Tools for VS Code will come in handy.
Reducing cognitive load
Plus, constantly switching between environments could also disrupt the workflows. This is something Microsoft has been trying to address for several months now, helping developers see what your code generates and debug it without leaving the developer environment.
The Edge Developer Tools for VS Code is available to download from the Visual Studio Marketplace. Developers can also install it from within Visual Studio Code.
