Language support for Blitz3D

This extension enables language support for the BlitzBasic language and extends the usage of the Blitz3D program and its blitzcc compiler. Standalone parsing and type checking is implemented based on the original Blitz3D source code which is released under the zlib/libpng license by Blitz Research Ltd.

Note: This is a pre-release version. You might experience more bugs than usual. Please help development by reporting bugs and/or making feature requests on the GitHub repository.

Release Notes

To see all the changes, check the changelog or the GitHub repository.

• Initial support for modern Blitz3D up to version 1.117
• Dynamic function list generation (for LibSGD and custom builds)
• Support for multiple versions (ux will be revamped later)

Features

The extension provides the following functionalities:

• Syntax highlighting
• Syntax error reporting
• Semantic highlighting
• Some semantic warnings and errors (WIP)
• Basic IntelliSense suggestions
• Document symbols tree
• Signature help
• Usage of the built-in debugger GUI
• Added functionality for documentation
• Ability to set the default file to run in launch.json
• First compile error can be seen on every save
• Command for browsing the builtin code examples
• Basic document formatting

Note: The extension uses the Blitz3D default compiler for Windows. Due to its limitations, information of runtime errors cannot be extracted. This is not a loss of functionality as the default IDE behaves similarly.

BBDoc: javadoc-like documentation utilities

BBDoc helps to write code more efficiently with some added keywords, without affecting compatibility.

Function documentation

The following keywords can be used in lines preceding function definitions:

• ;; followed by the documentation of the function
• ;;param followed by the name of a parameter and its description
• ;;author followed by the author of the function
• ;;return followed by the return value of the function
• ;;since followed by the version when the function was created
• ;;deprecated, optionally followed by a reasoning or alternatives

These keywords are interpreted as comments in standard blitz3d, but within vscode they are used to provide information on mouse hover or code completion.

Type documentation

The following keywords can be used in lines preceding type definitions:

• ;; followed by the documentation of the type
• ;;author followed by the author of the type
• ;;since followed by the version when the type was created

Manage tasks with TODOS

Use ;;TODO anywhere in the code to create a link for a task in vscode's problems window. This can be disabled in the extension settings.

Information interpreted without keywords

Comments following global, local, const or field declarations are interpreted as descriptions, which are shown in code completion windows.

Extension Settings

See contributed settings in the Feature Contributions tab.

Known Issues and limitations

• Include files might not be recognized when filename is not explicitly specified
• Multiple open folders are not supported, they might falsely collide with each other
• Information provided on hover might be incorrect if there are more than one objects with the same name (like a function and a type)
• Type checking is limited as of now