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Contributing to Zynthian Development (view source)
Revision as of 20:17, 18 January 2024
, 18 January→So what is an IDE ?
[[File:Zynthian-visual-studio-code.png|600px|right]]
[[File:Zynthian-visual-studio-code.png|600px|right]]
===== So what is a host machine? =====
Visual studio code is a considerable piece of software, Microsoft know an awful lot about writing code and they have realised presenting an suberb, well maintained IDE into the hands of absolutely anybody with a desire to write code. If you date back far enough to remember "a computer on every desk running Microsoft software" you might generate a rye smile at this point, but the software world is a very different place now, and Microsoft are perfectly willing to produce their IDE for every conceivable platform and operating system they come across and make it work. Anyone who plays around with Arduino's and such will find vsc's platformIO plugin is a considerable improvement on the Arduino's own IDE, and plugins like this are the secret of VSC. The Python environment is a plugin, tools to view git repositories are a plugin, remote access components are a plug in . I haven't looked but I don't doubt there is something MIDI related plugin out there . . .
So we have a considerable chunk of code to run, which we are going to use to write a considerable chunk of code on a Raspberry Pi... Can you run VSC on a Raspberry Pi? Well yes you can, indeed I have run my vsc environment on a Pi4. But I wouldn't run zynthian and the VSC code on a zynthian. There is a cleverer way. You use the remote connection plugin, to access a separate Zynthian doing musical stuff. The vsc remote component installs itself onto the pi, once you present it with the correct password ( Did I mention about getting your passwords sorted out...?), and it handles many, many areas of this process that you can lose yourself into setting up yourself. I have written this process up for other environments and it was ..... Involved. OK vsc advert over.
So Our development environment consists of two machines, one is the zynthian itself, and the other is another computer running the vsc code.
This other machine is the host computer and it can be any number of bizarre, powerful, stylish, home built, clapped out, PC's and goodness knows what else, but as long as it runs VSC you are good to go. As I say my host machine is now a Pi5 running VSC very effectively, but your's could be MAC or a PC or goodness knows what else. This is why using a specific IDE provides dividends because we don't need to explain all the different access mechanisms for all these machines. Look up how you install VSC on your host machine and do that. It's pretty easy and if anyone wants to write up specific versions then great! just say so on the forum.
===== How do I install VSC on my host machine? =====
Go to [https://code.visualstudio.com/Download VSC Download page] and pick the appropriate version. For your particular Pi OS. If you are running 64 bit software pick .deb arm64, if you are on a 32 bit Pi OS then pick .deb arm32.If you are on MAC or PC then download accordingly.
[[File:Microsft-vsc-download page.png|600px|thumb|right|VSC Download Page]]