I was sitting around thinking about my development workflow recently. I have my favourite tools for modelling, texturing etc but since the days of FPSC and DBPro I've not thought about the coding side of things much.

So I noticed all the developers at work using the same IDE on their Mac's and instantly thought it must be some Mac only software or really expensive. It turned out to be Visual Studio Code.

I've always stayed away from VS because it became so large over the years and began to feel overwhelming. However to my surprise it turns out VS Code is extremely lightweight (around 50mb), completely free and ... beautiful.

It comes with full support for a numbr of languages and GIT out of the box then you can download extensions for any specific integration you want to achieve. Its well supported and lots of people saying great things.

So I'm now looking at this in the hope I can use VS Code for GG development either modding the C++ source code or writing LUA scripts in the same place. You can even directly integrate with Unity game engine using C#.

Visual Studio Code (Windows / Mac):
https://code.visualstudio.com/

Visual Studio Code C++ Extension:
https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=ms-vscode.cpptools

Visual Studio Code LUA Extension:
https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=trixnz.vscode-lua

Visual Studio Code GIT:
https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/introvideos/versioncontrol

Visual Studio Code Unity:
https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/other/unity

I would love to hear if anyone is using VS Code and if possible to use this instead of VS 2015 for modding the GG source code. If not, I think I will still use this for LUA scripting and Unity integration but if it can be used with GG then Christmas has come early for me!

and what about integration steamworks in GG ? is this possible ?

yes I use VS 2017 for updating the GameGuru source code and yes you could integrate steamworks in GG.

But how ? Can you integrate steamworks ?

I used it for lua too, but I remove it because I can not work in more than one folder, so I go back to sublimetext. Of course you can mod the source, but I have no clue if everything works fine and will compile. VS installs a lot of libraries which you need, so nobody can tell you if it works. Test it and tell us. I am interested if it works for you


Everything is possible. The engine is written in C++. Is it easy? Not at all, because you need to modify it so, a GG-developer can use it for his own needs. After there is no real use case at the moment, I think we will not see something like this before the multiplayer is on a level where steamworks make sense


He want to use VS Code not VS2017.

Someone working on integration steamworks ?

ah, read first post quickly, ok VS Code? will ask my colleague.

I just downloaded and installed VS Code. I'm not sure if I will be using it as yet for C++. Installed C# extension as I wanted to refresh my understanding of C using # rather than C++. I don't think I will probably use it for doing lua scripts because I found that Notepad ++ works extremely well -- especially with Bolt Action Gaming's API which is in an XML format and can easily be modified/add GG commands. I still believe this is the best standalone editor using lua for GG. I would give it a try for the sole reason for scripting for GG. That's not exactly why Nomad Soul is using this for lua as well.

@Nomad, I will be sending you a link to the files you asked for in a couple of hours. I will use GG PM to give you the link.

I would imagine that you would have to use the same version of VS as Lee is using. Older versions may lack specific libraries. Newer ones would probably be okay at a guess.

I use vi.

There is a VS Code extension called project manager which handles multiple folders. I'm guessing it might be necessary to use VS2015+ to compile GG but hopefully I can set VS Code as the primary code editor and GIT integration.


Cheers. Would be good to get alternative views on this.


Its possible to create custom language themes for VS Code but appreciate it would be a lot of work. I'll give notepad++ a try for the specific purpose of GG LUA scripting and may even look at doing a GG extension for VS Code if the XML can be ported over to JSON.


Yeah. VS Code probably won't have all the VS libraries required to compile GG out of the box so I guess it will either be a case of copying them across if thats possible or linking them so I can use VS Code to edit / manage the files.


LOL. Thats probably a little too hardcore for me but interesting to hear what other people are using.

One of the things I'm really enjoying about VS Code is how beautiful and well designed the editor is. In my opinion it works much better than the larger VS products as its very clean and modern and allows you to focus on coding rather than navigating around stuff. It also has very good debugging tools / extensions. As one reviewer said on Youtube, VS Code is so pretty it makes him want to write code!

I was joking, . I use Notepad++ for Lua scripting on the PC.

Mind you I really miss the power of vi, never could get the hang of emacs though.

Ahh emacs ... created by the great Richard Stallman. My favourite Stallman moral dillema:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LizeRqRgM90#t=2m50s