Useful Visual Studio Code Extensions

Alex Baban — Sat, 29 Jun 2019 02:27:07 +0000

A list of Visual Studio Code extensions I found to be most useful.

1. Live Server by Ritwick Dey

(https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=ritwickdey.LiveServer)

It's an HTTP server with live browser reload, and your can start or stop the server by a single click from the status bar.

2. REST Client by Huachao Mao

(https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=humao.rest-client)

With this extension you can create regular HTTP requests in plain text and run them then view the response directly in Visual Studio Code. Also you can put multiple HTTP commands in a single file and save them for future use. Has authentication support for "Basic Auth" among others.

3. Better Comments by Aaron Bond

(https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=aaron-bond.better-comments)

This extension adds "visual distinction" to code comments. You can "tag" (categorize) your comments with certain characters to make them stand out better so when you're looking for a particular type, you can easily find it.

4. Bracket Pair Colorizer 2 by CoenraadS

(https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=CoenraadS.bracket-pair-colorizer-2)

Adds extra colors (blue, yellow, purple, etc.) to matching braces in your code and gives you one more clue to help you understand faster what's going on in your code editor.

5. XML Tools by Josh Johnson

(https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=DotJoshJohnson.xml)

When you're working with XML (doesn't get much love these days) this extension adds a formatting feature and enhances the explorer with an "XML tree view". Also you can minify (turn it into a single line) your XML.

6. vscode-icons by VSCode Icons Team

(https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=vscode-icons-team.vscode-icons)

Adds icon images to the files which have different extensions. It has a different icon for each file extension. It makes it much easier to differentiate between file types in the files structure.

7. Encode Decode by Mitch Denny

(https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=mitchdenny.ecdc)

Allows you to quickly convert one or more selections of text to and from various formats.

8. DotENV by mikestead

(https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=mikestead.dotenv)

Adds syntax highlighting when editing .env files.

9. Vagrantfile Support by Marco Stazi

(https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=marcostazi.VS-code-vagrantfile)

It provides syntax highlighting support for Vagrantfile files.

10. Markdown Preview Enhanced by Yiyi Wang

(https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=shd101wyy.markdown-preview-enhanced)

Shows the rendered HTML markdown to the side of the current editor's pane.

11. GitLens — Git supercharged by GitKraken

(https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=eamodio.gitlens)

Shows who changed each line of code. Also, it shows when code was changed and the related commit message.

How to install Kotlin/Native on Windows

Alex Baban — Thu, 20 Jun 2019 04:16:17 +0000

Intro

By the end of this guide, you will have all what is needed to convert a hello.kt file containing this code:

fun main() {
  println("Hello, World!")
}

to hello.exe, a CLI (command-line interface) executable, which you can run and have "Hello, World!" printed in the terminal.

Note

If you want to build with Gradle, this is not the guide you're looking for. This guide shows you how to build by calling kotlinc-native from your terminal.

Prerequisites

Java JDK or JRE version 8 or higher to be installed on your system
you know what "Kotlin/Native" is and does (https://kotlinlang.org/docs/reference/native-overview.html)
you have read "A Basic Kotlin/Native Application" (https://kotlinlang.org/docs/tutorials/native/basic-kotlin-native-app.html) but for whatever reason you don't want to build with Gradle and an IDE

Let's Go Kotlin/Native

download "the Kotlin/Native compiler" from the GitHub repository (https://github.com/JetBrains/kotlin-native/releases)
- look for the "Latest release" and follow the link to "Download the binary distribution from..."
- scroll to the bottom of the page and locate the "Assets" section
- click on the kotlin-native-windows-...zip link
- save the .zip file on your computer
place "the Kotlin/Native compiler" in the right location
- in your "home directory" (which you can locate if you run echo %HOMEPATH% in a terminal (usually "C:\Users\YourName")) create a directory .konan
- from the contents of kotlin-native-windows-...zip take the folder named something like kotlin-native-windows-... and copy it in the .konan directory
- inside the kotlin-native-windows-... directory, there is a bin directory, add the path to this bin directory to your "Environment Variables..." > "System variables" > "Path" so that kotlinc-native can be called from any location
- if you need help with what the "Path" environment variable is, here is a nice guide (https://docs.telerik.com/teststudio/features/test-runners/add-path-environment-variables)
test
- open a terminal, run cd / then run kotlinc-native -version, if all went well so far the version of the compiler should show and you are (almost) ready to compile

First compilation

create a directory mkdir C:\apps\kotlin
create a file hello.kt inside C:\apps\kotlin
with your text editor, edit hello.kt and put this code in it:

fun main() {
  println("Hello, World!")
}

save hello.kt
in a terminal cd C:\apps\kotlin
run kotlinc-native hello.kt -o hello
- because this is the first run of the compiler, the "native dependencies" will be downloaded, extracted and saved to that .konan folder from your "home directory" (this is a one-time operation which might take a few minutes)
when the compiler is done, you'll find a hello.exe in the same folder with the source file hello.kt
run hello.exe in the terminal to see the "Hello, World!" text

Summary

This guide showed you how to install and then create a "Hello, World" CLI executable with the Kotlin/Native compiler.

Now that the toolchain is installed on your system, go ahead and create your "real" executable.

The syntax to use the compiler is:

kotlinc-native <file-name>.kt -o <file-name>

You can reach me on Twitter at: @alexbaban if you have any questions.

Happy "Kotlin/Native" coding!

Forem: Alex Baban