We just changed how we distribute pre-release versions of the Julia extension for VS Code. In the past we had a separate extension in the VS Code marketplace that was called Julia Insider for this purpose. That insider extension is now deprecated, and we are using standard features in VS Code to distribute pre-release versions instead.
Going forward, if you want to try the pre-release version of the extension, you would install the regular Julia extension first. Then head over to the extension view in VS Code and select the Julia extension. At the top you will now see a button Switch to Pre-Release Version:
And yes, you guessed it: if you click that button you are automatically switched over to the pre-release channel and will always get the latest pre-release.
Switching back to the release version is equally simple, just press the Switch to Release Version button:
Switching back and forth is really quick and simple now, so hopefully this will make it easier to just hop over to the pre-release version if you want to try something new.
This change also brings a new version number scheme with it. In general, the patch version of the extension version now indicates whether a given build is a) not released to any channel (with a patch number 0), b) released to the pre-release/insider channel (with a patch number of 1) or c) released to everyone (patch number of 2). Whenever we are going to release a new build, we are now going to increase the minor part of the version number. All of this is not really in the spirit of semver, but at the moment the VS Code marketplace doesn’t support anything else, so we just have to do it this way.
