Is there a way to see a preview of a webpage? - visual-studio-code

Question

I was wondering if there is a way to see a preview of an webpage page that we are working on in a web browser directly from the Visual Studio Code editor, instead of having to click the file to make it open by the default web browser.

Answer 1

You can open your Visual Studio Code project in a browser window by configuring a gulp task with the node module gulp-open. Then you can run the gulp task from inside Visual Studio Code.
Here's how you might configure the gulp task:
var open = require('gulp-open');
gulp.task('browser', function(){
// Define the source to match the file you wish to open:
gulp.src('./www/index.html')
// Designate the browser you wish the file opened in:
.pipe(open('<%file.path%>', {app: 'google-chrome'}));
});
});
Since we've named our task "browser", from inside Visual Studio Code we can hit command/control P to bring up the command pallet and type task. Then start to type browser. You should see code complete for the full task as you type. Hit return and it will open the your file in the browser you designate. Once the browser is open, you can resize it and Visual Studio Code so that they are side by side. Then as you work you can refresh the browser to see your changes.
You can consult the docs for gulp-open on NPM.

Answer 2

Directly from the editor, there are WYSIWYG editors such as Adobe Dreamweaver, Kompozer, etc. Though these often offer a poor preview of anything beyond simple HTML and CSS (i.e. no JS, no animations, possibly different CSS support).
Using a text editor such as the Visual Studio Code Editor, Sublime Text or vim, there is no such preview function.
Ideally, you'd want to test in the browser (the browsers you'd expect your target audience to be using) to ensure you have an idea of what exactly your visitors will see.
To save time between coding and previewing, you could simply keep the window/tab open in Chrome/Firefox/Edge and refresh after saving the file in the editor.