Eclipse to VSC?

There's no debugger, no app settings, and things like configuring the app (devices, min SDK, etc.) are pretty clunky. (All configuration is done with the VS Code "Quick Pick" control -- the drop down that's at the top center of the windows, like the command palette -- when having a dedicated view / preferences sheet might be a bit more usable for app configuration, since there's multiple properties to set.)

There is a pretty bad bug where System.println() steals keyboard focus, so if you have a println() in onUpdate() for example, you won't be able to type in VS Code until you kill your app.

Having said all of that, for any app that doesn't have settings I prefer VS Code 10000% over Eclipse. Even for apps with settings, I still prefer to edit in VS Code and switch to Eclipse only when necessary.

Thanks!! I might as well give it a try then.

I use VS Code on Mac for work (9 to 5, 5 days a week, at minimum).

Let's just you couldn't pay me to use Eclipse, and I've heard nothing but negative comments about Eclipse from colleagues. I used Eclipse for years at a previous job, and I would never go back.

Even when Eclipse and VS Code have similar features -- e.g. Quick Access (CMD-3) vs Command Palette (CMD-SHIFT-P) -- the VS Code implementation is far superior, because of little usability tweaks.

I could go on and on, but here's just a few reasons I like VS Code better than Eclipse:

- Keyboard-first philosophy (to avoid constantly switching between keyboard and mouse/trackpad):

  - Command Palette (like Eclipse's Quick Access, but actually usable/useful)

  - Quick File Open (CMD-P) (Eclipse kind of has this, but again the UX is not as good)

  - Multiple cursors (e.g. select some/all occurrences of a given string of text, edit all of them simultaneously) (huge productivity gains here)

- Optional ability to remember unsaved files when the app is closed

- No modal dialogs

- Default support for dark mode (dark mode in Eclipse clashes with Monkey C's default syntax highlighting scheme)

- Not forced into the "workspace/project" model that Eclipse insists on using

- Frequent updates (with actual new features). I can't tell the difference between Eclipse 2017 and Eclipse 2021.

- Large number of useful extensions, due to popularity (e.g. Bracket Pair Colorizer, various git extensions)

- Built in terminal with unicode support and automatically linking of file paths

- Much faster and more responsive than Eclipse for most use cases. (I admit VS Code sucks for some use cases, like opening a 100 MB JSON file, or opening a minified JS file with a single 100,000 character line. But I don't expect Eclipse to work very well in those cases either.)

Having said all of that, the Monkey C extension implementation in VS Code could use some work.

And VS Code is not perfect.

But Monkey C was literally the only reason I have Eclipse installed, because I would never use it for anything else. (e.g. it's useless as a one-off text editor.)

Once Monkey C is feature-complete in VS Code, I'm uninstalling Eclipse forever.

FlowState said:

And VS Code is not perfect.

But Monkey C was literally the only reason I have Eclipse installed, because I would never use it for anything else. (e.g. it's useless as a one-off text editor.)

Once Monkey C is feature-complete in VS Code, I'm uninstalling Eclipse forever.

I've been on Eclipse for years, never used VS Code(and use Xcode as a one-off text editor since my days developing in Swift for the Apple Watch).

I've just tried installing VSC and came totally unstuck - using theGDVC 2020 Connect IQ Tools video. Since I'm foreign to VSC, is there a tutorial for installing?

Tutorial for just installing VS Code? Or for also installing the Monkey C extension?

To install VS Code on Mac I just went to the website, downloaded the .app file and ran it: https://code.visualstudio.com/

Since I assume you already have the Connect IQ SDK Manager installed, then you just install the Money C extension (from Garmin). You can either search for it in the extensions tab or use this link:

https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=garmin.monkey-c

There will be further instructions on the extension page.

Yes, I have downloaded the VS Code app, and it runs.

Yes, I have the Connect IQ SDK manager installed and running in Eclipse (but I used the Eclipse UI to do that, so It's not clear to me what is happening under the hood)

I'm suck on:  

FlowState said:

you just install the Money C extension (from Garmin)

As I'm not familiar with the VSC UI, I don't know what that means.

your link https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=garmin.monkey-c took me here:

I was concerned by the message highlighted that it was in Alpha state. I really don't want to be testing Garmin's software when I'm already testing my own!

But anyway, I pressed on.

Stop 1 Install extension. I assumed that meant press the green Install button, so I did. It opened VSC - with no further instructions.

Step 2 Download the Connect IQ SDK Manager. I clicked the link and a new tab on my browser(Safari)  opened at https://developer.garmin.com/downloads/connect-iq/sdk-manager/connectiq-sdk-manager.dmg with 

Must be a Safari issue, so I opened the link in Chrome and it downloaded connectiq-sdk-manager.dmg which I duly opened and it prompted me with a login:

That's where I'm stuck. Which  credentials am I supposed to use? I've been developing in Eclipse forever and don't have a record of my "developer account" credentials!

So, what with the prospect of:

1. using an Alpha version of a Garmin plugin to a
2. foreign IDE, which 
3. crashes Safari and
4. requests credentials I'm not aware of,

I'm struggling to move to VSC. 

I think I have followed steps 3. and 4, but what does 5. mean?

What are the instructions for importing an Eclipse project for a watch app into VSC?