Default value for renderFinalNewline on Linux is bad for conditioned users

[dlech]

#64667 introduced a new setting renderFinalNewline. The choice was made that on Linux, the default value for this setting is true which changes the behavior from versions of VS Code before the setting was introduced.

Without realizing the default behavior has been changed, I have been adding double newlines to the end of files since I have upgraded to v1.32 because I have become conditioned to the display of line numbers on all lines. I was quite surprised to find that I could put the cursor on a line without a line number! I suspect that I am not the only user that has developed such conditioning. Changing the default behavior was certainly not very nice for my UX.

[glen-84]

You're not the only one to be surprised by this change – #69129, #70344.

It wasn't even (prominently) mentioned in the update notes, which is a surprise in itself.

Ideally, Linux users could have been prompted to make a choice when upgrading VS Code. Failing that, the only other reasonable option seems to be to default to true. It's unfortunate (since it's not really "correct"), but as you say, many users have been conditioned to expect this numbered empty line at the end of files.

I personally use Windows, but since I work on projects with Linux EOL characters and have the EditorConfig insert_final_newline setting enabled, I've actually set renderFinalNewline to false so that I no longer have this "blank line" at the end of files. It's going to take some getting used to, but I still believe that it is the correct behaviour.

[glen-84]

A third option may be to display some kind of character/symbol to indicate that the last line ends with a \n.

Something like this:

I mentioned this here as well (with some alternatives).

In that way, you know that the last line is terminated, and where to place your cursor, without erroneously numbering that as a line.