CSE 333 Text Editors

This page is here to help you choose, setup, and find an efficient workflow for a text editor to use in this class. While you can make just about anything work, you must make sure that your code compiles and runs on attu before submitting. In order to make this requirement somewhat easier, all of the tools covered in this article will connect to attu and do the editing there, to minimize the amount of file-copying/git-push-pull-ing when debugging.

In the past, students have successfully used a variety of editors in this class, including: vim, VS Code, and emacs. This article covers setup and tips for the two most popular options: vim and VS Code.

Vim

Vim is an extremely customizable and powerful text editor, but can have a fairly high learning curve. This is the editor that many of you likely used in CSE 351, and getting it set up on attu is simple. So simple, in fact, that it's already done for you!

Getting Started

In order to launch vim on the CSE Linux environment, type vim or vim <filename> on the command line and press <Enter>. This will open a welcome screen or the specified file, respectively, for viewing and modification.
The course staff has put together a “vim cheat sheet” of commonly used vim commands to help you get started with basic file navigation and editing, which can be useful while learning and before you have the muscle memory down.
When finished, you can type :q to exit (or :q! to exit and discard changes).

Tutorials

vimtutor can be run from the command line and gives a brief introduction to vim terminology and the general gist of how it works. This describes how to move around, select, copy, paste, and other basic functions of vim. However, vimtutor is quite dry.
Vim Adventures is a more interactive introduction; the free version is enough to cover the basics of vim.

CSE 333 vim Configuration

The following vim startup configurations have been created by the course staff to align with the CSE 333 style guidelines and are HIGHLY RECOMMENDED for anyone using vim as their text editor for the class to improve your workflow and reduce frustrations.

`.vimrc`

Commands placed in the file ~/.vimrc will be run when vim starts up. The CSE 333 starter vimrc file can be automatically placed in the correct location for you using the following command:

curl -Lo ~/.vimrc https://cs.uw.edu/333/resources/vimrc.txt

This should serve as a good starting point for you to customize vim yourself and does the following for you:

Allows you to press F9 to run make (you can also just do :make). Then, you can run :copen to see the output alongside your code. Vim will even take you to the lines that have compiler problems.
Enables the :Man <page number> <function> command, which allows you to view man pages within vim.
Adds a ruler at 80 characters so you can avoid those pesky linter complaints.
Highlights whitespace at the end of lines.
Turns on line numbers by default.
Automatically turns tabs into spaces and automatically indents the proper amount after hitting enter.
Sets the color theme to ‘ron’. Instructions for changing this are in the .vimrc file.

If you're curious how it works, the file has comments that describe what each command does; just open the file with vim ~/.vimrc.

`c.vim`

Vim also has features that allow it to conditionally execute commands from a file. A particularly useful example is that vim can recognize file types and conditionally execute a command file based on the file type. The course staff has provided a file that sets up vim to help with automatically formatting C/C++ files. You can download and properly install it using this command:

curl --create-dirs -Lo ~/.vim/after/ftplugin/c.vim https://cs.uw.edu/333/resources/c_vim.txt

Like with the ~/.vimrc, this file includes comments that explain what it's doing. You can view them with vim ~/.vim/after/ftplugin/c.vim.

VS Code

VS Code is another editor commonly used by CSE 333 students. While the use of the editor itself has a much lower learning curve, the setup process can be much more involved if you want to run VS Code locally on your PC and remotely edit files on attu.

Getting Started

You can get started by downloading VS Code.
Installing VS Code from somewhere other than Microsoft (like a package manager if you're on Linux) might cause problems with setup!
If you're using the CSE Linux VM, then you're done – you can directly run VS Code to edit files on the VM! If you're connecting to attu, then continue onward...
Install this extension. The simplest way to do so is to open the VS Code quick-open dialog (Ctrl-P) and paste this command:
```
ext install ms-vscode-remote.remote-ssh
```
Now, open the command palette (there are several keybinds for this, but <F1> works on all platforms) and paste the following:
```
Remote-SSH: Add New SSH Host...
```
Then run it by hitting <Enter>.
Now, follow these steps to connect to attu:
- When prompted for your “SSH Connection Command,” enter ssh CSENetId@attu.cs.washington.edu, substituting your CSE Net ID.
- When asked to “Select SSH configuration file to update,” this can be left as the default (which will vary by platform).
- You've now added attu as an SSH host in VS Code. This means VS Code will remember your username and the attu.cs.washington.edu domain. It will also keep track of your recent files you've opened on attu.
- Open the “Remote Explorer.” It should be the bottom-most icon on the left-hand sidebar. You should see an entry labelled attu.cs.washington.edu, right-click it and select “Connect to Host in Current Window.” Enter your CSE Net ID password when prompted.
- Your VS Code is now connected to attu! You can view a terminal on attu with Ctrl-` or use View: Toggle Terminal in the command palette.
- Clone your CSE 333 repository to attu if you haven't already; then, select the folder in “Explorer” (which can be opened with the button on the top of the left-hand sidebar).