Visual Studio Code (VS Code) Extension Overview (Preview Feature)

Description

VS Code is a lightweight code editor made by Microsoft. It allows you to install third-party extensions to customize your programming environment. For BBj 25.00 and higher, the BBj Language Server project provides a language server and VS Code extension for the BBj language. You can install the BASIS extension from the Visual Studio Code Marketplace to run BBj code from the VS Code editor in the GUI, BUI, or DWC clients, all with a click of a button.

Work in Progress:

This feature is still a work in progress, so some sections may be incomplete or subject to change. BASIS would appreciate your feedback about this feature. Please see bbj-language-server issues for issue tracking.

Getting Started

To get started, ensure that you have Visual Studio Code installed. If you don’t have it yet, follow the instructions at Setting up Visual Studio Code. Then, install the BBj Programming Language Support extension. To install the extension in VS Code, click the (Extensions) icon, search for “BBj Programming Language Support” by BASIS International Ltd., and then click the [Install] button.

Note:

Since the extension is only available as a Pre-Release version, you’ll see the following message:

Click [Install Pre-Release] to continue.

VS Code Configuration

After installing the BBj Programming Language Support VS Code extension, configure it with the following steps:

Click the (Manage) icon. This is where the [Install] was before installing the extension:
Select Settings
Scroll down to "Bbj: Home"
Click "Edit in settings.json"
Set the following value for "bbj.home" to the file path to the BBj Home directory, <bbjhome>
Save changes

Repeat steps 3-6 to set up your EM Account using the following:

Setting Name	Key	Value
Bbj > Web: Username	"bbj.web.username"	Your EM username
Bbj > Web: Password	"bbj.web.password"	Your EM password

BBj Language Server

The BBj Language Server helps the VS Code extension with BBj syntax highlighting, code completion, and code descriptions. To install it, simply mark the “BBj Language Server” checkbox on the Feature Selection screen of the BBj Installer:

BBj Language Server Configuration

The BBj Language Server comes pre-configured, but you have the option to customize the settings in EM > BBjServices > Server:

Configuration	Description
Start	When checked, the BBj Language Server will start when BBjServices starts.
Hostname	This is the IP address or hostname on which the server machine accepts connections from clients. An address of 0.0.0.0 accepts connections on any IP address that the server supports. An address of 127.0.0.1 (localhost) only allows server access from that machine.
Port	This is the port this server listens on for connections. By default, it is 5008.