GitLab introduces new Visual Studio Code-based web ide

Devops platform GitLab has released the new version of its web-based IDE as beta. The new environment has features such as a customizable interface, contextual actions, find & replace and more.

GitLab already had a web-based integrated development environment based on the Monaco editor, but it preferred to switch to the popular VS Code. The core of it is also open source. That announced GitLab in May this year and now the time has come; the beta is available to everyone and is enabled by default on GitLab.com. GitLab’s goal was to make the IDE better suited for more than just minor tweaks.

According to GitLab’s blog post, the new development environment offers a “flexible and customizable interface with collapsible panels and custom themes.” In addition, there is a context menu with additional actions and there is support for drag & drop in the files panel. Find & replace is also possible, including in all open files at the same time. Furthermore, this ide should use 80 percent less memory than the previous version and touchscreens are better supported, although this will work better on tablets and large phones than on small phones. In addition to the new IDE, there is a terminal that can connect to a remote development environment. GitLab says it plans to introduce more features in the remote development category.

Anyone who still wants to use the old, Monaco-based version of the ide can still manually go back to it. This is possible until the new ide is out of beta, which is expected to be in May next year.

Update, 7:15 p.m: The title has been clarified.