Mastering Powerful Features in VSCode: Tips and Tricks

vscode has become a go-to for a lot of devs but its surprising how many people simply use it simply as an IDE, while ignoring its many powerful features. it can be especially powerful when doing tedious text modifications in JSON files or otherwise.

select same text in file

windows - CTRL + D
macOS - CMD + D

say you have the same class applied to mutilple divs but you would like to change its name for the first three instances, you simply press the command above and repeat it for each selection, then type in as you normally would.

select all instances of text in file

windows - CTRL + L
macOS - CMD + Shift + L

say you want to select all instances of some text in file, you select your text then press the command above, giving you a cursor against all instances of that text in your file.

add cursor at click

windows - CTRL + click
macOS - CMD + click

you can also manually add mutiple cursors by using the command above, giving you finer control over cursor placement.

duplicate selection

windows - SHIFT + ALT + Down
macOS - SHIFT + OPT + Down

to quickly duplicate lines, select your text then press the command above.

remove duplicates

suppose you are working with a list of restaurants, but there are duplicated entries.

to get a list of all unique values, do the following

CMD + P or CTRL + P
Type > Sort
Select Sort Lines Ascending

then do the following (source)

Control + F.
Toggle “Replace mode”
Toggle “Use Regular Expression” (the icon with the .* symbol)
In the search field, type ^(.*)(\n\1)+$
In the “replace with” field, type $1.
Click. (“Replace All”).

and what you end up is with all the unique values