News

Java in VS Code Devs Get a New Welcome Page with Features Tour

• By David Ramel
• March 18, 2021

The Microsoft team supporting developers using the Java in Visual Studio Code (VS Code) editor has added a new welcome page to its support website that includes, among other enhancements, a new tour of important features.

"A common thing at first-time use is spending a couple of minutes browsing Welcome Page and trying features from there," said Yaojin Yang, senior program manager in Microsoft's Developer Division, in blog post. "Users' satisfaction with the Welcome Page has direct reflection on their satisfaction with product and consequently affects their decision of adoption. Therefore, we believe it's worth an effort to experiment with a refreshed Java Welcome Page."

Yang introduced the new Welcome Page along with the latest update of the enormously popular streamlined code editor (now in v.1.54), support for which is provided via extensions.

The new Welcome Page tour is an experimental enhancement the team began offering in the February. The tour was created to help Java jocks:

• Find the most important features of VS Code
• Get started on their first VS Code project
• Access references in the Configuration, Spring, and Student groups
• Link to the Java in VS Code blog, Twitter, and the GitHub repository

Users access the experimental feature tour with a java welcome command from the command palette, which includes these presentations:

• Open Project Folder
• Project Explorer
• Running and Debugging
• Testing

The February 2021 update also includes redesigned icons for extensions.
"Their modern and concise look underlines VS Code as a modern and lightweight tool," Yaojin said. "Hope you like the new icons."