Ubuntu – How Do I Setup Microsoft Visual Studio: Code as a Default Editor

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Microsoft Visual Studio Code is a really nice editor and I would like to make it my default normal (not terminal) text-editor over Gedit, Emacs, or Vim. (I know, I'm so evil.)

There's no way for me to add it via a GUI option and I've looked at several online suggestions, but all of them are fairly out of date or unhelpful.

Do any of you have any suggestions? I'll take a terminal solution, but if you guys have a GUI one, that'll do too.

Best Answer

From Microsoft VSCode's Doc

Setting VS Code as the default text editor

xdg-open

You can set the default text editor for text files (text/plain) that is used by xdg-open with the following command:

xdg-mime default code.desktop text/plain

Debian alternatives system

Debian-based distributions allow setting a default editor using the alternatives system, without concern for the mime type. You can set this by running the following and selecting code.

sudo update-alternatives --set editor /usr/bin/code

Additionally, there is issue mention following

Some need you to set the default for a mime type like:

~/.local/share/applications/defaults.list

[Default Applications]
text/plain=code-insiders.desktop
Which adds Open With Visual Studio Code - Insiders (Ctrl+O) to the nautilus context menu.
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