Visual Studio Code is slated for a UX refresh

The team also plans to make it easier to identify extensions that negatively impact performance. Accessibility is another fundamental goal.

The roadmap drills into a number of specific areas for consideration, covering the user experience (UX), the editor, the workbench, TypeScript support, language features, Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL), debugging, and extensions.

UX improvements

• Planned improvements cover continued incremental enhancements to presentation and behavior.
• Explore the integration of the Fluent Design system, for building user interfaces for deployment on different form factors, on Windows.

Code editing

• investigating both the isolation of the editor from misbehaving grammars and support for semantic coloring.
• Returning localization support to the standalone Monaco editor.

Workbench capabilities

• Exploration into detachable workbench parts, which would be a challenge to implement, due to architectural issues.
• Filtering and fast keyboard navigation in trees.
• Improvements for the file explorer when working in large workspaces.
• Safe provision of richer customizability.

TypeScript support

• Collaborate with the TypeScript team on code editing and navigation.
• Understand experiences for both TypeScript and JavaScript.
• Improve integration of the tslint linter by running it as a TypeScript Server plug-in.

Language support

• Improve “Expand Selection” to better adhere to language semantics.
• Enable language extensions to support call and type hierarchies.
• Improve support for navigating complex error descriptions.

Windows Subsystem for Linux support

• Investigate extensions to leverage available tools.
• Look at what other changes are being enabled by changes needed for WSL.

Debugging improvements

• Offer data breakpoints support.
• Improve hovering and inline values by leveraging knowledge about the programming language.
• Continue documenting debugging recipes for common configurations.

Extensions support

• Support the install of an extension without reloading the workbench.
• Improve the extension recommendation system.
• Make extension usage more secure and improve the process for handling malicious extensions.
• Collaborate with authors to improve extensions.

Microsoft last year published a 2018 roadmap for Visual Studio Code, citing planned improvements in areas such as TypeScript and memory usage.