February 2023 Summaries

VS Code is a lightweight, cross-platform Microsoft IDE whose efficiency can be improved through keyboard shortcuts that reduce reliance on the mouse. The overview covers commands for opening the Command Palette, terminal, new windows and files, quickly locating files, symbols, text, and specific lines, and managing the sidebar, split views, zoom, word wrap, and Zen Mode. It also highlights editing shortcuts for moving lines, selecting all instances of text, commenting code, and removing trailing whitespace, along with Markdown preview options and instructions for enabling automatic saving. Most shortcuts are provided separately for macOS and Windows, and users can consult VS Code’s Keyboard Shortcuts Editor or official cheat sheets for a fuller reference.

GitKraken Client 9.1 adds support for working with Git repositories in WSL 2 through WSLg, enabling developers to use a Linux-based development environment while retaining Windows as their primary operating system. The approach requires separate GitKraken installations on Windows and within the WSLg Linux environment, allowing users to switch between them depending on where repositories are stored, while broader seamless Windows access to WSL repositories remains limited by architectural challenges. WSL 2 uses a Microsoft-maintained Linux kernel and, on supported Windows 10 and Windows 11 versions, includes WSLg for graphical Linux applications. Users can update an existing WSL installation or install WSL 2 with Ubuntu, then install the appropriate GitKraken Linux package for Debian-based, RPM-based, or other supported distributions. Running GitKraken directly in WSL 2 provides near-native Linux performance and combines Git visualization tools with Linux workflows inside Windows.

GitKraken Client 9.1 introduces user-requested enhancements informed by feedback from more than 1,000 users, including improved support for WSL 2 environments. Users can now install the Linux version within WSLg distributions and more easily work with Linux repositories, while using installations on both Windows and WSLg for faster switching between systems. The release also adds file encoding support for formats such as ISO-8859-1 and Windows-1252, editable stash messages, and an option to bypass Git hooks during commits. Workspace updates enable sorting across repository, issue, pull request, and work-in-progress tables, extend GitKraken Insights to Azure DevOps-connected Cloud Workspaces, and offer licensed users 7- or 14-day metric views.

GitHub Actions for Azure enables teams to automate development, testing, packaging, releases, and deployments directly from GitHub repositories, reducing repetitive manual work while supporting Azure-based CI/CD processes. Its main components include YAML-defined workflows, triggering events, jobs that run sequentially or in parallel according to dependencies, reusable actions, and runners that execute jobs on GitHub-hosted or self-hosted infrastructure. Teams can connect GitHub to Azure through service principals or publishing profiles, authenticate using secrets or OpenID Connect, deploy applications and databases, substitute configuration variables, manage Azure policies as code, and build customized virtual machine images. Workflows can be extended with actions from the GitHub Marketplace, repository-based actions, or Docker Hub containers, although external code should be reviewed for security before use.