eschurter
This blog post gives a little more high level overview of the current functionality and where we're headed: https://about.gitlab.com/blog/2022/12/15/get-ready-for-new-g...
For a deeper dive you can check out our Remote Development [direction page](https://about.gitlab.com/direction/create/editor/remote_deve...) and [documentation](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/project/remote_development/)
You're right, the client-side instance of VS Code is only a piece of the full "IDE" puzzle. You can learn more about our direction for providing server-side runtime on our Remote Development direction page: https://about.gitlab.com/direction/create/editor/remote_deve... More on that in the near future.
I'm glad you enjoy that `.` hotkey! Don't worry, it won't go away! I'm about 90% sure multi cursor works the same way, but I'll verify and make sure we don't take a step back there :)
I hope you find value in the other features we'll be delivering as part of the VS Code transition!
Thanks for linking that epic @john_cogs! You can also see the direction page for remote development: https://about.gitlab.com/direction/create/editor/remote_deve...
We're looking to a future where the Web IDE earns the "IDE" distinction, and you're absolutely right - for smaller edits, we'll continue to have a lightweight Web Editor.
It is an interesting position we find ourselves in and we had some lively discussions about it! I would like to note, though, that Monaco (which powers our current Web IDE) is ALSO a Microsoft project. So this isn't a change in strategy as it relates to using open source projects maintained by those that may be seen as competitors.
We have faith in the future of VS Code as an open source project but I'll also say that this isn't a one-way door. If things change in the future, we're not so heavily leveraged that we couldn't replace the Web IDE's underlying editor again.