Using raylib in VSCode

VSCode is an excellent choice of code editor when it comes to raylib. Getting set up with a new VSCode project is easy.

[!NOTE] Make sure you install Raylib from the official release binaries which you can find here, rather than building Raylib from source (should work without changes on Windows if you install Raylib mingw release).

Step 0

If you have not installed MinGW or W64DevKit yet, go here and follow instructions to set up C/C++ in your local machine.

Additionally further steps assume that you have installed both raylib and w64devkit in C:\raylib\ folder and your folder structure looks like this:

.
├── raylib
│   ├── CHANGELOG
│   ├── include
│   ├── lib
│   ├── LICENSE
│   ├── README.md
│   └── src
└── w64devkit
    ├── bin
    ├── COPYING.MinGW-w64-runtime.txt
    ├── Dockerfile
    ├── include
    ├── lib
    ├── libexec
    ├── README.md
    ├── share
    ├── src
    ├── VERSION.txt
    ├── w64devkit.exe
    ├── w64devkit.ini
    └── x86_64-w64-mingw32

Feel free to install differently but do the changes to the configuration files accordingly.

Step 1

Copy the VSCode folder (and all its contents) from raylib/projects/VSCode (from your installed directory) to your desired project location. These files can also be found here.

[!NOTE] You can use the Zip Tool to download only the VSCode folder as a zip.

Step 2

Make sure you set the proper paths to your local build of raylib in c_cpp_properties.json and tasks.json. These will be specific to your installation of raylib.

In c_cpp_properties.json make sure that `compilerPath`` is correct:

"includePath": [
  "C:/raylib/raylib/src/**",
  "${workspaceFolder}/**"
],
"compilerPath": "C:/raylib/w64devkit/bin/gcc.exe",

Similarly in tasks.json also you have to make this change for compile to occur.

Extra Configuration for Windows Subsystem for Linux Users

If you are on Windows and use Windows Terminal with the Windows Subsystem for Linux as your default shell, you won't be able to debug or build your game with the default settings. That's because the build configuration will try to launch cmd to open a standard Windows shell which won't exists in your Linux distribution.

To make it work, edit launch.json in the .vscode folder so that the externalConsole property is true instead of false.

[!IMPORTANT] You need to make this change twice i.e. you should see "externalConsole": true, in both configurations.

Step 3

Install the "C/C++" VSCode extension. (From Menu - File > Preferences > Extensions)

Step 4

Try launching by using the "Debug" launch configuration in the Debug tab or press F5.

or

You can Build the game using View > Command Palette (or Ctrl + Shift + P), Type Run Task and press Enter. And Select the Build Debug option. A game executable will be created in the project folder. You can see any error in the console