Skip to content

VSCode Guide

$\gdef \N{\mathbb{N}} \gdef \Z{\mathbb{Z}} \gdef \Q{\mathbb{Q}} \gdef \R{\mathbb{R}} \gdef \C{\mathbb{C}} \gdef \setcomp#1{\overline{#1}} \gdef \sseq{\subseteq} \gdef \pset#1{\mathcal{P}(#1)} \gdef \covariant{\operatorname{Cov}} \gdef \of{\circ} \gdef \p{^{\prime}} \gdef \pp{^{\prime\prime}} \gdef \ppp{^{\prime\prime\prime}} \gdef \pn#1{^{\prime\times{#1}}} $

Why you should not do this

The instructions for the ISE MiniProject strongly recommend against using VSCode, instead suggesting IDEs such as Eclipse or IntelliJ IDEA. I believe this is for the following reasons:

  • Eclipse and IDEA are built specifically for Java.
    • Meaning, they come with built in support for Java.
  • The instructors are more used to those IDEs.
  • Those IDEs take care of most of the project setup.
  • You may already be comfortable with those IDEs.

Why you should do this

Well, the reason I’m doing this is because I absolutely love VSCode. I have my theme set up, and my custom keyboard shortcuts, etc. I’m already comfortable with VSCode and I don’t want to learn the layout of another IDE. In short, I’m stuck in my ways. Here are some other reasons to do this:

  • VSCode is awesome.
  • There are extensions in VSCode that are not part of other IDEs.
  • You’re a freak and want to go through the process of configuring everything yourself.

1. Installing VSCode

You can download VSCode from here.
I’m not going to go into so much detail for this one, I’m assuming that if you want to stick it out with VSCode, you already have it installed or know how to get it up and running.

2. Setting up Java support in VSCode

You may have Java already installed on your computer. To check, run this in a terminal or command prompt: java --version. You should see an output like this:

Text Only
1
2
3
java 17.0.5 2022-10-18 LTS
Java(TM) SE Runtime Environment (build 17.0.5+9-LTS-191)
Java HotSpot(TM) 64-Bit Server VM (build 17.0.5+9-LTS-191, mixed mode, sharing)

As you can tell, I’m running Java at version 17. I think you should be good with anything as early as Java 12, but I haven’t tested that.
If you get a “command not found” error, you’ll have to figure out how to install Java on your computer. There are lots of resources online for that, so I’m not going to go through that here.

I’m using the “Extension Pack for Java” by Microsoft (Extension ID: vscjava.vscode-java-pack).
This comes with a bunch of things including IntelliSense, Java Project Management, Test Running, language support, etc.

I’m also using Maven to manage the project builds. The extension pack has built in integration with Maven, but you may need to install Maven on your computer before you can use it. On MacOS, you can use brew install maven, and confirm the installation with mvn -v.

With that all done, VSCode is now set up to handle Java projects. Here’s some chocolate to celebrate: 🍫.

3. Creating the Java Project

  1. In VSCode, open the Command Palette (CTRL+SHIFT+P or CMD+SHIFT+P) and run > Java: Create Java Project....
    • Pasted image 20231212122215.png
  2. Choose Maven as your project type.
    • Pasted image 20231212122241.png
  3. Select No Archetype.
    • Pasted image 20231212122406.png
  4. Set your “group ID”. I chose to format mine as com.<myLastName>_<partnerLastName>
  5. Set your artifact ID. Per the ISE MiniProject guidelines, this must be in the format ise5784_<lastFourDigitsOfYourID>_<lastFourDigitsOfPartnersID>.
  6. Choose where you want the root folder of your project to be. All project files will be contained within this folder.
  7. Open the folder in VSCode. Not sure why this isn’t automatic.

Important

Move Main.java up two levels so it is a direct child of java/, and delete the src/main/java/com folder. If you do not do this, Maven will get confused with your imports.

Almost all of the code you write will be in src/main/java.

If you did everything correctly, your project in VSCode will look like this:
Pasted image 20231212134855.png
Note the collapsed “Java Projects” and “Maven” panes at the bottom of the file explorer.

4. Configuring Maven

Open pom.xml. If you get errors, that’s somewhat expected. The default generated file needs a bit of modification so we can work with it.

  1. Replace all occurrences of http:// with https://.
  2. Set your compiler source and target properties to your Java version.
  3. Add the proper dependencies for test frameworks:
    XML
     1
 2
 3
 4
 5
 6
 7
 8
 9
10
11
12
13
14
    <dependencies>
    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.junit.jupiter</groupId>
        <artifactId>junit-jupiter-engine</artifactId>
        <version>5.2.0</version>
        <scope>test</scope>
    </dependency>
    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.junit.platform</groupId>
        <artifactId>junit-platform-runner</artifactId>
        <version>1.2.0</version>
        <scope>test</scope>
    </dependency>
</dependencies>

After these changes, my pom.xml looked like this:
Pasted image 20231212125948.png
The last thing to do here is to actually install the dependencies we specified in pom.xml. Open the File Explorer tab, expand the Maven pane, and you’ll see this:
Pasted image 20231212130233.png
Run the install action to install the dependencies.

5. Run and Debug

At this point, you are technically done, but I recommend setting this up so that you and your partner are using the exact same VSCode configuration.

Open the Run and Debug tab, and choose Create a launch.json file.
I highly recommend to delete the first generated launch configuration, and only leave the “Main” configuration. I renamed the Main configuration to “Run Project”. This was the end result:
Pasted image 20231212124648.png

6. Troubleshooting

These are the mistakes I have made so far in setting up VSCode for my partner and myself. If you’re running into issues, check this list.

  • Make sure you and your partner have Java installed. And no, being able to run Minecraft isn’t enough, you have to be able to run java --version in the terminal.
  • Make sure you and your partner have Maven installed. You need to be able to run mvn -v in the terminal. On Windows, things are a bit complicated, you either have to add the Maven binary to your PATH, or specify where your Maven binary is in VSCode Settings.
  • Make sure you don’t have any illegal characters in your directory name, this seems to be incompatible with VSCode.
  • If you are having weird import problems, make sure your folder structure is correct.
    • After completing Homework 2, your file tree should look like this:
    • Pasted image 20231213173435.png