Author / Chris Green

by Chris Green

How to Install Visual Studio Code on Raspberry Pi

Microsoft has a version of Visual Studio Code which will run on the Raspberry Pi OS — formerly known as Raspbian. You can even download it from the APT (Advanced Packaging Tool). And it’s simply 2 lines of code to install:

sudo apt update
sudo apt install code

Afterward, you can launch it from the Programming menu in the GUI or by typing code in the terminal.

And the really nice thing about VS Code being in the APT is that you can update it like any other package on your Pi:

sudo apt update
sudo apt upgrade code

by Chris Green

How to get the last element in a JavaScript Array

Let’s say you have an array of numbers (but it could be an array of anything really):

const myNumbers = [1,2,3,4,5]

You want the last number in the array but don’t care how many elements are in the array. The simplest way to get the last number in the array is to get the element who’s position is the same as the length of the array minus 1. The minus 1 is because arrays are zero based, so the first element is accessed like so:

const selectedNumber = myNumbers[0]

Therefore, the easiest way to get the last element from an array without knowing how many elements are in the array is like this:

const lastNumber = myNumbers[myNumbers.length - 1]
by Chris Green

How do I update my Raspberry Pi?

It is a good idea to periodically update your Raspberry Pi so you have the most recent version of your packages and patch security vulnerabilities. The easies way to do this is thru APT (Advanced Packaging Tool).

To get started, open up a Terminal window. We will want to make sure the APT has the most recent list of available packages. So first we will run:

sudo apt update

Next, run the following command to upgrade to the latest versions available:

sudo apt full-upgrade

We use the full-upgrade rather than just the basic upgrade so that any dependencies will also be updated.

A couple things you will want to keep in mind. First, this is only for day-to-day upgrades. It does not work on major releases.

Second is that APT will not check if you have enough disk space to run. Any previously downloaded package files will be kept in /var/cache/apt/archives. But you can easily remove them by running:

sudo apt clean

Reference: https://www.raspberrypi.org/documentation/raspbian/updating.md

by Chris Green

How to check the RAM on your Raspberry Pi

At some point you are going to want to know some information about the RAM on your Raspberry Pi — how much you have, how much is used, how much is free, etc. Thankfully, there is a simple terminal command to give you this information.

Open a terminal window and enter this command:

free -h

This will give you a quick glance at the RAM usage. The -h flag will display the information in a more human readable format.

by Chris Green

Vue.JS — Error when clicking link, but works on second click

Had a not so obvious issue pop up recently in a Vue.JS app I’ve been working on for a while now. I have a table of members and if you click the member name, you get redirected to their profile page. There is a click event on the name link so it will store the profile id then use the router to push the new route. The issue is that when you click the link, you get the following error:

Navigation console error

BUT if you click the link a second time you get redirected to the profile page as expected. This error is basically saying you can’t navigate to the same page you are on. Which is not what I was trying to do. So I was confused.

Turns out everything was working properly in my code I just didn’t account for it all. Here is my original link:

<a href="#" @click="individualStoreKeyAndRedirect(data)">{{ data.value }}</a>

The trouble is the href=”#” is firing before my @click event fires. So, Vue’s router thinks I’m trying to go to the same page. To make the behavior what I wanted, I had to prevent that from firing and just fire my @click event.

Thankfully, Vue makes it pretty easy. Just add .prevent to your @click event. My new link looks like this:

<a href="#" @click.prevent="individualStoreKeyAndRedirect(data)">{{ data.value }}</a>

And now everything works the way I wanted and no console error!

by Chris Green

Quick and easy way to show/hide hidden files on MacOS

The MacOS treats files which start with a period (.) as a hidden file. Say, something like .gitignore. And there are times where you want to actually see these hidden files. To do so, you can run some Terminal commands that affect the system. OR you can do a simple key command. Like so:

⌘⇧. will toggle the AppleShowAllFiles setting

This way you can turn them on/off quickly and easily without mucking in the Terminal.

by Chris Green

Windows 10’s Built In Clipboard Manager

Windows 10 has a built in Clipboard Manager which will let you copy multiple items — text or images — to your clipboard. Then later you can select from the list of items copied and paste them back in the order you choose.

You can turn it on (it’s off by default) by going to :

Start  > Settings  > System > Clipboard

Clipboard Settings

Here you can also sign in so you can sync your clipboard across devices.

To use the Clipboard Manager, instead of Ctrl+V to paste you use:

Windows logo key  + V

This shows a list of things copied and you select which one you want.

You can also select the triple dots menu on an item for additional options.

More Information:
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4028529/windows-10-clipboard

by Chris Green

VS Code equivalent to Visual Studio’s Ctrl+m Ctrl+o

Sometimes, when you have a long file, it’s convenient to fold/collapse all the code regions so you can get a big picture of your file. In Visual Studio (the full blown IDE from Microsoft), it’s a simple keyboard shortcut combination

Ctrl+m Ctrl+o

Thankfully, Visual Studio Code has something similar. To fold ALL regions use

Ctrl+k Ctrl+0

Then just use the following to unfold the code file

Ctrl+k Ctrl+j

The nice thing about this is that all the sub regions are folded as well. So you can simply open one region and all the items inside are still folded.

Reference: https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/getstarted/tips-and-tricks#_keyboard-reference-sheets