Live Share Versions Save

Note: Assets are for documentation not the product source code.

This release addresses some key feature enhancements for Visual Studio Code. We really appreciate all of the usage/feedback, so please keep letting us know how to improve! 💯

Feature Enhancements (VS Code)

1. Session management explorer view 🎉(#137) - As soon as you click the Share button (or join a session), a new Explorer view will appear called VS Live Share that allows you to easily manage the shared resources in your session (e.g. terminals, shared servers), and passively view what other participants are doing. The existing command palette options are still available, but this view provides a quicker way to interact with Live Share moving forward (e.g. you can simply select a participant to begin following them).

   

   Additionally, we introduced a new Live Share tab to the "activity bar", which provides another way to manage your session. More importantly though, it provides a home for other extensions to contribute functionality to enhance the Live Share experience (coming soon!).

2. CodeLens support for guests 🔥- In addition to the existing supported language services (e.g. completion, go-to-definition, errors), guests in a Live Share session now receive CodeLens' remotely from the host as well. This provides guests with potentially valuable context, such as version control information, and code complexity, depending on the extensions the host has installed. By default, guests are able to view CodeLens within opened files, but in order to execute one (by clicking it), the host has to enable the liveshare.allowGuestCommandControl setting (for security purposes).

3. Remove user from session (#398) - The guest join notification already provides a Remove button, however, if you dismissed that toast, there wasn't previously a way to later remove the user. Via the new explorer view (mentioned in #1 above), you can now remove a user from the session at any time, by simply clicking the X button next to their name.

Note: Assets are for documentation not the product source code.

This release addresses some key feature enhancements for both Visual Studio and Visual Studio Code. We really appreciate all of the usage/feedback, so please keep letting us know how to improve! 💯

Feature Enhancements (VS Code/Visual Studio)

1. Support for guest's to start without debugging - We previously added the ability for guests to start debugging (assuming the host enabled it), and with this release, guests can now perform a CTRL+F5 (VS) or Start Without Debugging (VS Code) as well.

Feature Enhancements (Visual Studio)

1. Guest support for searching the Solution Explorer 🎉 - Guest's running Visual Studio can now search for files across the remote project, by hitting Ctrl+; or selecting the Search Solution Explorer text box above the Solution Explorer tree. We shipped guest support for VS Code's Go to File... in a previous release, so this release introduces the equivalent for Visual Studio. Note, this requires VS 2017 15.8+.

Feature Enhancements (VS Code)

1. Join command accessibility improvements - The Join Collaboration Session command is now available even when you're not signed in, and will initiate a sign in if/when needed. Additionally, it now supports being run via the keyboard by means of the CMD+ALT+J (Mac) CTRL+ALT+J (Windows/Linux) keyboard shortcut.

Note: Assets are for documentation not the product source code.

This release addresses some user-reported issues in both VS and VS Code. We really appreciate all of the usage/feedback, so please keep letting us know how to improve! 💯

Bug fixes (VS Code/Visual Studio)

1. Proxy connection improvements - Users can now correctly connect to Live Share when behind an auto-detecting proxy, whose PAC file returns multiple proxy servers.

Bug fixes (VS)

1. Fixes for remote code navigation - We fixed a bug that prevented guests from being able to use go-to-definition or find all reference, when using VS 2017 15.6 or 15.7.

Bug fixes (VS Code)

1. Debugging fixes (#683) - We fixed an issue where some users would get a Service not available: DebuggerHostService error when trying to start a shared debugging session. Additionally, we fixed some issues that ensure a guest can successfully restart a debugging session that they started (if the host enabled guest-initiated debugging).

2. Prevent creating a .vs folder - When we added support for "find files" (CMD/CTRL+P) for guests, the underlying search index was being stored in a .vs folder in the host's project. This wasn't intentional, and has been removed, in order to ensure that Live Share has zero impact on a project after sharing.

Note: Assets are for documentation not the product source code.

This release addresses a few highly-requested feature enhancements for both VS and VS Code. We really appreciate all of the usage/feedback, so please keep letting us know how to improve! 💯

Feature Enhancements (VS Code/Visual Studio)

1. Guest-initiated debugging (#32) 🚀- Guests can now be given the permission to start debugging themselves, as opposed to requiring the host to do it. Among other things, this is a huge enabler for pair programming, where it's valuable for guests to have increased autonomy. This is disabled by default (for security reasons!), but the host can enable the liveshare.allowGuestDebugControl setting (VS Code) or the Allow Guest Control setting in Tools | Options | Live Share (VS), at which point, any guest can then run F5 to launch the debugger.

Feature Enhancements (VS Code)

1. Starting up voice calls (#22) 🚀🔥- We shipped a new experimental extension that adds the ability to start up a voice call within a Live Share session. This way, you can spin up a collaboration session, without needing to coordinate a separate tool to communicate, which can be very valuable for certain use cases (e.g. online mentoring). To get started, simply install the new VS Live Share Audio extension and follow it's getting started instructions.

2. Shared workspace tasks (#40, #48) 🚀- If your app uses VS Code tasks to define/perform repeatable workspace actions (e.g. run tests or a build), then when the host runs a task, it's output will be automatically shared with guests. By default, guests aren't able to run tasks themselves (for security reasons!), but if needed, the host can enable the liveshare.allowGuestTaskControl setting, which allows guests to run tasks as well.

   

   In addition to tasks that are run from the command palette (e.g. via the Tasks: Run Tasks command), the output of tasks are shared, regardless how they are initiated, which allows the host to work the way they're comfortable with, as opposed to needing to conform to a specific UI gesture in order to collaborate. For example, the following are other task entry points, whose output would be automatically shared:

   1. Clicking the Run CodeLens above a script in a package.json file
   2. Clicking the play button next to a script in the new NPM Scripts explorer

3. Shared debug terminal 🚀- If a launch configuration (defined in a launch.json file) specifies that the app should be run in the integrated terminal (as opposed to the Debug Console), then the terminal instance created on F5 will be automatically shared with guests (in read-only mode). This ensures that command-line tools, scripts, etc. can be fully debugged collaboratively, regardless how the host has configured them to be launched.

4. Guest re-join on reload (#169) - If you reload VS Code while joined into a Live Share collaboration session, you will now be automatically re-joined into the session again, as opposed to needing to find the session URL and re-joining "manually". This behavior reflects the way a VS Code reload works with local workspaces, and among other things, allows guests to easily manage extensions (i.e. install, disable, etc.) without interrupting their current Live Share session.

5. EXPERIMENTAL Increased guest limit (#229) - In order to support Live Share being used in classrooms (e.g. to run interactive lectures), the guest limit can now be increased from 5 to 30. This feature is highly experimental, and therefore, to enable it, you need to set the liveshare.features setting to experimental and then reload VS Code. We look forward to working with more instructors to fine-tune the experience and performance moving forward.

Feature Enhancements (Visual Studio)

1. Shared build output (#48) 🔥- When the host runs a project/solution build, the output will now be automatically shared with all guests (even if they're in VS Code!). This enables collaborating on build failures, which is critical piece of context when working together. By default, guests aren't able to run builds themselves, but they can be given permissions to do so by enabling the Allow Guest Control setting in Tools | Options | Live Share.

Note: Assets are for documentation not the product source code.

This release addresses a few highly-requested feature enhancements for both VS and VS Code. We really appreciate all of the usage/feedback, so please keep letting us know how to improve! 💯

Feature Enhancements (VS Code/Visual Studio)

1. Improved "follow mode" (#462) 🚀- When you follow another participant, you can now properly interact with code (e.g. place your cursor, highlight text, perform a Peek Definition), without "follow mode" being automatically disabled. Due to the fact that follow mode was auto-disabled after simply placing your cursor, many users didn't even realize this feature existed! So this enhancement is extremely neccessary (and we appreciate all the feedback we heard here 😄 ). Additionally, in VS Code, toggling follow mode is now possible via the keyboard by hitting Ctrl+Alt+F (Windows/Linux) / Cmd+Alt+F (macOS). Check out more details about "following" in our docs.

Feature Enhancements (Visual Studio)

1. Remote language support for Razor (#59) 🔥- Guests can now edit Razor files (e.g. .cshtml) and receive full language services (such as auto-completion) for both C#, HTML and tag helpers. This enhancement helps ensure the collaboration experience for ASP.NET projects is awesome! Note: In order for this feature to work, you need to be running Visual Studio 2017 15.8 Preview 4+.

Note: Assets are for documentation not the product source code.

This is a bug fix release which addresses some issues with shared terminals in both Visual Studio and Visual Studio Code. We really appreciate all of the usage/feedback, so please keep letting us know how to improve! 💯

Bug Fixes (VS Code/Visual Studio)

1. Properly resizing shared terminals (#307) 🚀- When creating a shared terminal, it was previously allocated with static dimensions (height/width), which worked fine for many scenarios, but had the effect of preventing full-screen applications (e.g. Vim) and shells with right-aligned prompts (e.g. idiomatic Fish configurations) from working correctly. Additionally, if you resized an existing terminal, it wouldn't resize the output until your cleared it and ran your command again. Shared terminals now fully support resizing.

2. Correctly rendering escape sequences in shared terminals on Windows 7 (#306) - When viewing a shared terminal on Windows 7, escape sequences were rendered incorrectly, which made the output of the terminals hard to read. This has been resolved, and therefore, shared terminals work properly across all supported platforms.

Note: Assets are for documentation not the product source code.

This is a bug fix release that addresses some reliability issues with shared debugging in Visual Studio. We really appreciate all of the usage/feedback, so please keep letting us know how to improve! 💯

Bug Fixes (Visual Studio)

1. Resolved debugging hang when hitting a breakpoint (#402) - When users had certain extensions installed alongside of Live Share, it was possible for the UI thread to hang when a breakpoint was hit during debugging. This has been addressed, and therefore, shared debugging is more reliable, but also more interoperable with other Visual Studio extensions that contribute debugging capabilities (e.g. OzCode).

Note: Assets are for documentation not the product source code.

This is a small release with some fixes that resolve some telemetry indicated and user-reported issues in both Visual Studio and Visual Studio Code. We really appreciate all of the usage/feedback, so please keep letting us know how to improve! 💯

Bug Fixes (VS Code)

1. dpkg error on non-Debian/Ubuntu Linux distros (#537) - An error would appear on distributions like Fedora or Arch that reported that dpkg was not present. This was part of a dependency check and is expected to error, so we made the log message clearer.

Enhancements (VS Code)

1. Find files by name now respects the search.excludeFiles setting - The feature respect the search.excludeFiles setting in config.json

Note: Assets are for documentation not the product source code.

This release includes some enhancements and bug fixes that resolve some key user-reported issues in both Visual Studio and Visual Studio Code. We really appreciate all of the usage/feedback, so please keep letting us know how to improve! 💯

Enhancements (VS Code)

1. Linux: Enable sign-in without a user code - The sign-in process on Linux is now exactly like Windows and Mac. No more entering user codes!

2. Find files by name - Guests can now type a filename in the command palette (Ctrl+P / Command-P) to find a file in the source tree. It currently does not respect the search.excludeFiles setting but support for this setting is coming along with VS support.

Bug Fixes (VS/VSCode)

1. Users are able to rejoin and active session if they have been removed (#342) - Guests that were not approved or removed from the collaboration session could attempt to re-join causing the host to have to remove / not approve them again.

Bug Fixes (VS Code)

1. Live Share impacting git operations in VS Code (#419, #404, #511) - We had reports of some users encountering odd behaviors with VS Code's Git support that should now be resolved.

2. Improved detection and messaging of corrupted installs - Live share now detects more situations where the installation process failed and provides more actionable feedback.

Note: Assets are for documentation not the product source code.

This is release includes some small enhancements and bug fixes resolve some key user-reported issues in both Visual Studio and Visual Studio Code. We really appreciate all of the usage/feedback, so please keep letting us know how to improve! 💯

Bug Fixes (VS/VSCode)

1. Performance improvements for shared terminals and servers 🚀(#367, #390) - We made some fundamental improvements to the way shared servers and terminals work, which should significantly improve performance, particularly when retrieving lots of data (e.g. downloading a large Javascript as part of a shared web app) over high-latency connections.

2. Correctly syncing the effects of Git operations (#470) - We heard reports of files being deleted when the host ran certain Git operations (e.g. git rebase). This release resolves that issue, and ensures that the side-effects of Git commands are synchronized correctly amongst participants.

Enhancements (VS Code)

1. Controlling the visibility of the Live Share status bar items 🎉(#90) - Your VS Code status bar can start to get pretty cluttered after installing enough extensions. To ensure that users have complete control over their status bar arrangement, we introduced a new setting called liveshare.showInStatusBar, which allows you to choose when the Live Share-specific status bar items should be displayed:

   • never - Keep your status bar clutter-free, and instead, rely entirely on the command palette to share/join/etc.
   • always - The current and default behavior
   • whileCollaborating - Only show the status bar items when actively sharing/joining a collaboration session.

Enhancements (VS)

1. Context menu for user info/actions - Right-clicking on a user in the list of participants will now display their name, avatar (currently GitHub-only), and a button to begin following them.