reStructured Ecosystem

By Lex Li

reStructuredText has evolved for decades and ever since Visual Studio Code was born, an ecosystem is built around it to serve a variety of users. This article provides a snapshot of the main components currently being used by more than 370,000 active users.

reStructuredText Extension for Visual Studio Code

This is currently the core of the ecosystem with most users. Its frequent releases keep bringing new features and bug fixes, and also integrate with the best and latest components of the whole ecosystem.

Note

Later this extension might be referred to as vscode-restructuredtext.

reStructuredText Syntax Highlighting

This is an extension created by Trond Snekvik, which focuses on syntax highlighting and section navigation.

Note

Later this extension might be referred to as vscode-rst.

Important

vscode-restructuredtext prompts new users to install vscode-rst, to ensure that all users receive the best in class syntax highlighting.

Esbonio Language Server

Danger

Starting from version 190.1.17 of vscode-restructuredtext, this component is replaced by the Esbonio extension.

Esbonio Extension for Visual Studio Code

Danger

Starting from version 190.1.17 of vscode-restructuredtext, this component is needed.

This extension is created by Alex Carney that enables reStructuredText language services, such as

• Linting

• Build error detection

• Live preview

Note

Later this extension might be referred to as esbonio.

Important

vscode-restructuredtext prompts new users to install esbonio so that language services can be enabled.

Warning

If more code linting than esbonio is required, users can install individual linters such as doc8, rstcheck, and restructuredtext_lint.

Microsoft Python Extension

This extension is not that closely related to reStructuredText itself, but does provide good support on selecting Python interpreters and so on.

Important

vscode-restructuredtext prompts new users to install vscode-python.