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Installation

Prerequisites

Required

Optional

  • BPP+ Preprocessor - Adds labels, scopes, and modular compilation to BASIC v2
  • Node.js v16.0 or later - Required only for building from source
  • vsce - Required only for building from source

Installation methods

Method 1: Install pre-compiled extension

The repository includes a pre-compiled .vsix file in the dist/ folder.

# Clone repository
git clone https://github.com/cbase-larrymod/bpp-plus-syntax-highlighter.git
cd bpp-plus-syntax-highlighter

Install the extension:

Via VS Code UI:

  1. Open Extensions panel (Ctrl+Shift+X or Cmd+Shift+X)
  2. Click the ⋯ menu (top-right of Extensions panel)
  3. Select Install from VSIX
  4. Navigate to dist/bpp-plus-basic-v2-syntax-0.0.7.vsix
  5. Click Install

Via command line:

code --install-extension dist/bpp-plus-basic-v2-syntax-0.0.7.vsix

Method 2: Build and install from source

# Clone repository
git clone https://github.com/cbase-larrymod/bpp-plus-syntax-highlighter.git
cd bpp-plus-syntax-highlighter

# Install vsce
npm install -g @vscode/vsce

# Build the extension package
npm run package

The package command creates dist/bpp-plus-basic-v2-syntax-0.0.7.vsix.

Install using VS Code UI or command line (see Method 1).

Method 3: Development installation

For development and testing:

  1. Clone the repository
  2. Open the repository folder in VS Code
  3. Press F5 to launch a development window

See Development and testing for details.

Verification

# Create a test file
echo '10 print "hello world"' > test.bas
code test.bas

Expected behavior:

  • Activation: Extension loads when you open .bas or .bpp files
  • Syntax highlighting: Keywords like print appear styled according to your color theme
  • Status bar indicator: Bottom-right corner shows BPP+ BASIC v2 as the language mode

Verification checklist

  1. Keywords highlighted - print, for, gosub, if appear styled
  2. Numbers highlighted - Line numbers and numeric literals are distinct
  3. Strings highlighted - Double-quoted text appears in string color
  4. Comments highlighted - rem or ; statements appear in comment color
  5. Snippets available - Type for and press Tab to test snippet expansion

Manual language selection

If syntax highlighting does not activate automatically:

  1. Click the language selector (bottom-right corner of VS Code window)
  2. Type or select BPP+ BASIC v2 from the language list
  3. Syntax highlighting activates

This may occur if:

  • You opened a file without .bas or .bpp extension
  • Another extension claimed the file association

File associations

  • .bas - Standard BASIC v2 source files (line-numbered or preprocessed)
  • .bpp - BPP+ preprocessor source files (with labels, scopes, and includes)

Extension precedence

If multiple extensions register for the same file type, VS Code determines precedence by:

  1. User-configured file associations in settings.json
  2. Most recently installed extension
  3. Extension with higher activation priority

To set BPP+ Syntax Highlighting as the handler:

// In VS Code settings.json
"files.associations": {
  "*.bas": "bpp+basicv2",
  "*.bpp": "bpp+basicv2"
}

Language identifier

Language ID bpp+basicv2 is used for:

  • Programmatic language selection via VS Code API
  • Workspace-specific language overrides
  • Extension dependency declarations
  • Language-specific settings configuration

Next steps

See Quick start.