Hello Retro Devs!

Note: this article is definitely adressing noobs/beginners like myself and people that have difficulty with coding but are perseverant enough to try and keep going.

In the last article, we installed external packages for Atom.

Today I want to show you guys how to do the same with Visual Studio Code, with an extra nice little feature that helps very much.
So, Microsoft Visual Studio Code is free, so anyone can download and install it.

1- VS Code

Once you are done with the installation, browse the extension by clicking the dedicated button.

2- The Extensions

You will bebrought to the Marketplace. Type "Pico8" in the search bar. You will see several results.

The ones I tried are:
- pico8-vscode by Jogn Barton
- pico8vscodeeditorby Grumpydev

Those two will add Pico8 language, syntax and color code to VS Code.

3- The Outliner

I also highly recommend pico8-simple-outline by Anthony Villena. This extension is the reason why I switched from Atom to VS Code. It allows you to display a list of all the functions in your project, and acces their definition by clicking on them.

It is an invaluable time saver, and it also helped me thinking about organize my code a little better.

4- Pico8's UI in VS Code

Finally, the last one, cherry on the cake is pico8-theme by Ian J Sikes. Same as the pico8UI in Atom, this will change VSCode Ui to a similar set of colors than Pico8. I think it's fun, but the bloody red is a bit aggressive on my eyes imo :p.

That's all folks! I hope you enjoyed it and that it was useful to you. Don't hesitate to share your tips and tricks in the comments!

Cheers.