Suggested CSE 333 Text Editors

Getting Started

1. 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.
2. 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.
   • A more thorough cheat sheet can be found here.
3. 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.
• Open Vim is a browser-based, interactive tutorial. There is also a "Practice" mode with a handy context-aware help menu. Make sure to complete the tutorial (and take notes!) before navigating elsewhere because it will restart if you do.
• Vim Adventures is a game-based, interactive introduction; the free version (levels 1-3) covers basic text navigation in vim, but in a way that will help with your muscle memory.

CSE 333 Vim Configuration

.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/editors/vimrc.txt

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

• Sets the color theme to ‘ron’. Instructions for changing this are in the .vimrc file.
• Turns on line numbers by default.
• Enables the :Man <page number> <function> command, which allows you to view man pages within vim.
• 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.
• Adds a ruler at 80 characters so you can avoid those pesky linter complaints.
• Highlights all matches for searches.
• Highlights whitespace at the end of lines.
• Automatically turns tabs into spaces and indents the proper amount after hitting [Enter] (specifically for C files).

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 install it using this command:

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

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

Getting Started

1. Download VS Code.
   • 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 to the configuration section.
2. Install the C/C++ 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.cpptools

As VS Code is an integrated development environment (IDE), you open and close the application like you would other applications like Microsoft Word and there is no need to use the terminal.

Tutorials

If you haven't used VS Code much before, it might be useful to walk through this Using C++ on Linux in VS Code tutorial.

CSE 333 VS Code Remote Configuration

1. Install the Remote SSH 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

2. Open the command palette (there are several keybindings for this, but [F1] works on all platforms) and paste the following:

   Remote-SSH: Add New SSH Host...

   Then run it by hitting [Enter].
3. Follow these steps to connect to attu:
   • When prompted for your "SSH Connection Command", enter ssh <netid>@attu.cs.washington.edu, substituting your CSE NetID.
   • 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 the recent files you've opened on attu.
   • Open the "Remote Explorer", which 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 NetID 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).

Getting Started

1. In order to launch Emacs on the CSE Linux environment, type emacs or emacs <filename> on the command line and press [Enter]. This will open a welcome screen or the specified file, respectively, for viewing and modification.
2. You can find an Emacs cheat sheet of commonly used 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.
   • Alternatively, here is a printable How to Learn Emacs visual tutorial (png).
   • A more thorough reference card can be found here.
3. When finished, you can type Ctrl-x, Ctrl-c to exit.

Tutorials

• The official Emacs Tutorial is accessed by typing Ctrl-h, t from within Emacs. This will open up a text file with instructions to follow that covers the basics of movement and editing. As this is just plain text, it can feel dry and is a lot to read.
• Here is a Practical Emacs Tutorial by Xah Lee. The presentation leaves something to be desired, but use the left side menu to access pages of interest.
  • Recommended: "Emacs Principles, Command and Keys", "Basic Emacs Keys", "Basic Tips", everything under the "Find Replace" heading, everything under the "Copy/Paste" heading
• The official Emacs documentation includes this guided tour.
• "Mastering Emacs" is an online repository of guides and articles about Emacs. The author does recommend going through the Emacs Tutorial first, but has an article on editing and movement.

CSE 333 Emacs Configuration

.emacs

Commands placed in the file ~/.emacs will be run when Emacs starts up. The default settings should do a decent job as-is, so we won't be providing a starter configuration file. If you do feel like customizing a bit, you can find some examples here.