Microsoft launches Visual Studio Code extension for debugging websites on iOS devices

Microsoft today announced the availability of a new extension for its cross-platform Visual Studio Code text editor that makes it possible for developers to debug code for websites when they’re running on iOS devices.

Until this point, if developers wanted to do this type of debugging, they’d have to do it using a tool in Safari — which in turn meant that they’d need a Mac handy. Now all you have to do is get Visual Studio Code running and install the new Debugger for iOS Web extension. The text editor is available for Windows and OS X/macOS. Like the editor itself, the new extension is free.

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“When developing websites running locally, it’s a cumbersome process to enable mobile devices access your local development server, which usually is a HTTP server running on localhost,” Microsoft JavaScript diagnostics program manager Kenneth Auchenberg wrote in a blog post. “To make this easier, platforms like Android supports port-forwarding natively, but iOS doesn’t support this.

“So we found a way to emulate port forwarding by adding the option to start an instance of localtunnel, that behind the scenes creates HTTP tunnel from your local computer to the public internet for the specified tunnelPort property. This HTTP tunnel is then used by the iOS device to get access to your local development server, just as any other public website.”

Clearly Microsoft is trying to do more to support development of apps for mobile platforms other than Microsoft’s own Windows 10 Mobile. But the company is also interested in the other direction — it has open-sourced the Windows Bridge for iOS to help developers convert iOS apps into Universal Windows Platform (UWP) apps.

Other text editors include Atom and Sublime Text.

Visual Studio Code had more than 500,000 monthly active users as of April. Since then it has gotten support for tabs.

You can download the editor here. To get the extension, open the extension menu (hit control-shift-X or open the Command Palette by typing control-shift-P and then type in “install extensions”) and search for “ios.” You should see it. You’ll need to restart the editor once you’ve installed the extension in order for it to work.