Visual Studio Code for PHP Developers
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Out of the blue, Microsoft jumps into the editor wars with an incredible offering that gives Sublime Text an overwhelming run for its money. In fact, it just might surpass it! So come along, as I demonstrate the ins, the outs, the tips, the techniques. Say hello to your new best friend: Visual Studio Code.
Make it Clean and Pretty
Step one for any new editor is to configure the layout and theme. While Visual Studio Code’s presentation out of the box is surprisingly good, let’s tweak things a bit to my personal taste level.
Essential File Manipulation
A clean workflow for manipulating files is essential. In this episode, you’ll learn how to optimize the process of creating, deleting, renaming, and duplicating your files.
Instant File and Symbol Traversal
Let’s next review the process of traversing your file system. Or, in other words, what is the fastest way to open a file, or a class, or a PHP method. It’s vital that we streamline this workflow as best as we can.
Vim Keybinding Goodness
The programming world splits into two groups: those who research Vim keybindings for each new editor they try, and those who are still figuring out how to exit Vim. If you’re among the former, let’s get these keybindings working.
Dynamic Snippets
Please don’t manually type out your various class and method structures. These are perfect use-cases for custom snippets. Let’s create a few together, while reviewing some key variable names to make them more dynamic.
The Glorious Built-in Terminal
If you’re accustomed to opening a separate Terminal or iTerm window each time you need to trigger a console command, if you wish, you may now accomplish this directly from Visual Studio Code, via its terminal panel. Ctrl-` is your friend.
Git Ready
Visual Studio Code provides first-class Git support out of the box. Let’s take a look.
Laravel Artisan Shortcuts
For the Laravel users among you, the Artisan extension allows you to trigger any artisan command straight for the GUI. This means, within seconds, you can generate and load your new controller.
PHP Automatic Imports
Let’s review some key PHP workflow techniques in this episode. What’s the quickest way to import a class? Or how can we shorten fully qualified class names in less than a second?
Better PHPUnit Execution
Built by Caleb Porzio, the “Better PHPUnit” extension offers us an incredibly clean workflow for building test-driven applications.
Magical PHP Formatting With Automatic Fixes
Ideally, each time I save a PHP file, it should apply PSR-2 formatting, as well any number of automatic code fixes that I desire. Let’s learn how to accomplish that very thing in this episode. You’ll love it!
The Context Menu Convenience
We’re getting nitpicky at this point, but that’s okay. Having to reach for the mouse to right-click on a symbol to perform any kind of contextual action is a bit annoying. Let’s instead assign a custom keyboard shortcut so that my hands can remain on the keyboard permanently.
Sweet PHP Debugging in Four Minutes
It’s always a little tricky to setup a good PHP debugging workflow in your editor. Luckily, Jose Soto has documented the setup process for us. Yay! Now, we can follow a few quick steps to arrange for powerful PHP debugging in Visual Studio Code.
Faster Write-offs With Multiple Cursors
How did we get along so long before the wonder of multiple cursors? We’ll never know. If this concept is new to you, you’re in for a productivity treat.
PHP Full Workflow Review
Before moving on to various JavaScript conveniences and optimizations for Visual Studio Code, let’s do a full PHP recap and review.
Measure Your JavaScript Dependency Cost
The useful “Import Cost” extension allows us to automatically visualize the size of each JavaScript dependency we import. It does this by appending a small, non-intrusive label next to each import. Are you importing a massive dependency that you didn’t know about? Well, if you are, this extension will make it crystal clear.
Pour Me a Glass of ESLint
Let’s supercharge our JavaScript (including Vue templates) error and style guide detection with ESLint. Once installed, you’ll stop and wonder how you were able to code effectively before this wonderful addition to your tool belt.
Type Checking JavaScript Files
What if we could add a single commented line to the top of any vanilla JavaScript file, and instantly activate advanced TypeScript type checking and error reporting? How cool would that be? Well – as it turns out, we can!
