If you ask me what code editor to use in the AI era, I would undoubtedly answer: Cursor Cursor Cursor!!!
It has intelligent Tab completion capabilities, file-level code reading abilities, and deeply integrated AI capabilities with the editor, combined with the powerful Claude 3.5 Sonnet model, making it quickly become a coding artifact for programmers. As the saying goes, With Cursor in hand, there are no Bugs.
New users will have a 14-day membership trial upon first registering for Cursor. To continue using it indefinitely, you need to register a new account on the official website with a new email, and then log in again within the software to continue using the Pro membership. Changing accounts will not alter the configurations within the editor, so you can switch with confidence.
Update: If you have already registered a Cursor account, you can directly refer to Method 1, which is more convenient.
Installation#
Go to the 🔗official website, click on Download in the upper right corner to download and install.
If you have previously used VS Code, you will be prompted during installation to import your VS configuration (themes, settings, plugins, etc.). It is recommended to import it; after importing, it will be almost identical to the original VS, allowing for a seamless migration, as Cursor is developed based on VS Code.
In the input box, enter 中文, click Install "Cursor" to install the command line tool, wait for the installation to complete, click OK, and then click Continue:
You will be asked whether to import the VS Code configuration, Import: click Use Extensions, Do not import: click the adjacent Start from Scratch (start from zero):
Waiting for configuration import...
If this pop-up appears, click Continue with Default:
Click Continue:
Skip the login registration step, click Skip for now:
Click Yes, skip login:
When you enter the main interface, you will find that the interface is almost identical to VS, and the settings, plugins, and themes from VS have also been synchronized. Here are a few points to note:
- Although the imported VS configuration will not sync settings afterward, as they are two independent and different editors, this means you can individually customize Cursor without affecting VS.
- Using Cursor may have a slight CPU overhead because it continuously indexes code for real-time predictions; it is speculated to be local inference,
which is different from the working mechanism of the.Github Copilotplugin in VS Code
At this point, the installation and import of Cursor are complete 🎉, and we will proceed with account registration and login.
Method 1 (Recommended)#
Update: If you encounter a failure to log out, you can try switching VPN nodes.
As reminded by netizens, there is a faster way to restore the Pro trial. After the account expires, log in to the official website's 🔗account settings page with the original account, expand Advanced, and click Delete Account:
Enter delete, click the Delete button, and after clicking, the original account will be canceled. Then you can register again on the official website with the original account, at which point the original account will become a new account, and the Pro trial and 500 quota will be restored.
Method 2 (Backup)#
If Method 1 fails, just repeat the process that follows.
It is advised not to excessively or bulk register; create a new account only after each account expires~~ cherish what you have.
Purchase Email#
First, go here 🔗buy an Outlook email, the cost is negligible, 0.03 yuan:
Keep the email account and password safe:
Log in to Email#
Log in here 🔗to Outlook email:
Copy the email account you just purchased into the box and click Next:
Copy the email password into the box and click Log in:
Once in the main interface, switch to Junk Email, as the emails from Cursor will be sent here as spam:
Register Cursor#
Editor Localization#
Before registering, switch the editor to the Chinese interface. Open the editor, search for the chinese language plugin in the plugin center, and click Install:
After the plugin installation is complete, a prompt will pop up in the lower left or right corner, click Change Language and Restart, and wait for the editor to restart:
Start Registration#
Open the Cursor editor, press the shortcut key combination Ctrl + Shift + J to open the settings panel, and click Sign in:
Click Sign up:
Enter First name (any) and Last name (any), fill in the email account you just purchased, and click Continue with email code:
Click Send email code:
You may encounter a CAPTCHA (the less, the better), click the checkbox:
Wait a few seconds, and the email will be sent to the Outlook email you just logged into. Enter the verification code into the verification box:
Once verification is complete, this page will indicate that registration is complete, and you can return to the editor:
Back in the editor, you will see that the account has automatically logged in, and there is a 14-day Pro trial.
After the account expires in the future, just press the shortcut key combination Ctrl + Shift + J in the editor to enter the Cursor account settings panel, click Log out to log out, and then repeat the process of Method 2.
At this point, the Cursor account registration is complete, and theoretically, you can continue to use it like this indefinitely. Future operations will take about 5 minutes, which is quite pleasant.
Settings#
You need to make some simple settings to enable AI capabilities. Press Ctrl + Shift + J to enter the settings panel, switch to the Models tab, turn off the others, and keep claude-3.5-sonnet enabled:
Switch to the Features tab and change disabled to enabled:
Then scroll down and set the enable states as shown in the image:
Once the settings are complete, it is recommended to restart the editor.
Usage#
Here are three commonly used (combinational) shortcuts during use:
Ctrl + L: You can have a conversation with AI alone, or select a piece of code in the editor and add it to the AI conversation.
Ctrl + K: Select a piece of code, directly input your needs or questions, and let AI help you improve a certain function or fix a bug. The green code block is the AI-generated result, and the red code block is the original code that will be replaced. Pressing the shortcut key or clicking Ctrl + Shift + Y will confirm the replacement, while Ctrl + N will reject it.
Tab: While coding, it will provide predictive capabilities based on the code context; just keep pressing Tab to complete.