Pawn — open.mp / SA-MP (Pawno · Qawno replacement)
Full Pawn language support for SA-MP and open.mp inside VS Code
(and Cursor, VSCodium, Gitpod) — a modern, cross-platform replacement for
Pawno and Qawno. Works on Windows, macOS (Apple Silicon & Intel),
and Linux, with no Wine on the Mac.
Features
- Syntax highlighting — Pawno-equivalent colors for keywords, tags,
natives, directives,
%-format placeholders, and escapes.
- Snippets —
OnPlayerConnect, OnPlayerCommandText, enum+data array,
dialogs, timers, stock/public/forward, and more.
- IntelliSense — autocomplete, hovers, signature help, go-to-definition,
and document/workspace symbols, indexed live from your
.inc / .pwn files.
- Folding & formatting — fold braces /
//#region / block comments, and a
dependency-free document formatter (no astyle WASM, so no host crashes).
- Native compiler — bundled
pawncc per platform, errors/warnings in the
Problems panel, compile-on-save, and a Cmd/Ctrl+Shift+B build task.
- No Wine on macOS — compiles in ~0.2s natively, output the open.mp
server accepts (AMX magic
0xF1E0).
How it compares
vs. the established Pawn Development Tool (openmp.pawn-development):
| Feature |
Pawn Development Tool |
This extension |
| Syntax highlighting |
✅ |
✅ |
| Snippets |
✅ |
✅ |
| Autocomplete / IntelliSense |
✅ |
✅ |
| Hover · Go-to-definition |
✅ |
✅ |
| Document / workspace symbols |
✅ |
✅ |
| Code folding |
✅ |
✅ |
| Document formatter |
✅ (astyle WASM) |
✅ (dependency-free, no host crashes) |
Build task → pawncc |
✅ |
✅ |
| Problems-panel diagnostics |
partial |
✅ |
| Bundles a compiler |
❌ (bring your own) |
✅ Windows · macOS · Linux |
| Native macOS — no Wine |
❌ |
✅ |
The two can coexist, but running both at once may produce duplicate
autocomplete/hovers — this extension will offer to help you disable the other.
| Platform |
Bundled compiler |
Wine needed? |
| macOS arm64 (Apple Silicon) |
✅ native pawncc (built, ships in .vsix) |
No |
| macOS x64 (Intel) |
build locally via the script below |
No |
| Windows (10/11, x64) |
✅ native pawncc.exe (ships in .vsix) |
No (runs directly) |
| Linux x64 |
build locally via the script below |
No |
On Windows, pawncc.exe is a native PE binary — it runs directly, faster than
the Mac path, and the bundled copy works out of the box. The extension picks the
right binary for the host automatically from bin/<platform>/. You can always
override with pawnOmp.compilerPath.
Why this exists
The official pawn-lang/compiler macOS release ships a 32-bit i386 binary
that cannot run on macOS 10.15+ (Apple dropped 32-bit support). The usual
workaround is to run the Windows pawncc.exe under Wine/CrossOver, because the
native macOS pawncc people could run tended to emit AMX magic 0xF1E1, which
the open.mp server rejects (Invalid/unsupported P-code file format).
It turns out you don't need Wine at all. Building pawn-lang/compiler from
source as a native 64-bit binary with the default 32-bit cell size yields
a pawncc that:
- runs natively (
Mach-O 64-bit executable arm64), and
- emits AMX magic
0xF1E0 — exactly what open.mp expects.
On a real gamemode this compiles in ~0.2s versus several seconds of Wine
startup per build.
Setup
On Windows and macOS arm64 the extension already bundles a working
compiler — nothing to install. On Intel Mac / Linux, build one once:
./scripts/build-native-pawncc.sh # -> bin/<platform>/ (auto-picked up)
# or target your server tree directly:
./scripts/build-native-pawncc.sh /path/to/server/qawno/native
The script clones the compiler, builds it natively for the host, installs
pawncc + its shared library, fixes the rpath, and verifies the 0xF1E0 magic.
Compiler discovery order
pawnOmp.compilerPath (if set)<workspace>/qawno/native/<pawncc><workspace>/qawno/<pawncc><workspace>/pawno/<pawncc><pawncc> on PATH (honors PATHEXT on Windows)- The extension's bundled
bin/<platform>/<pawncc>
- A Wine wrapper (macOS/Linux only):
pawnOmp.wineWrapperPath, or
qawno/pawn-cc.sh / run-pawncc-wine.sh in the workspace
(<pawncc> is pawncc.exe on Windows, pawncc elsewhere.)
Run Pawn: Show Compiler Info from the Command Palette to see which
compiler resolved and confirm its AMX magic.
Usage
Cmd+Shift+B (with a .pwn focused) — compile the current file.Pawn: Compile Main Script — compile pawnOmp.mainScript
(e.g. gamemodes/survival.pwn) regardless of the focused file.- Enable
pawnOmp.compileOnSave to build automatically on save.
- Errors/warnings appear in the Problems panel; the full compiler log is in
Output → Pawn.
Settings
| Setting |
Default |
Description |
pawnOmp.compilerPath |
"" |
Absolute path to a native pawncc. Empty = auto-discover. |
pawnOmp.wineWrapperPath |
"" |
Wine pawn-cc.sh wrapper, used only if no native compiler is found. |
pawnOmp.preferWine |
false |
Use the Wine wrapper even when a native compiler exists. |
pawnOmp.mainScript |
"" |
Workspace-relative main gamemode (e.g. gamemodes/survival.pwn). |
pawnOmp.includePaths |
["qawno/include","includes","pawno/include"] |
-i include dirs (non-existent ones skipped). |
pawnOmp.outputDir |
"" |
Output dir for the .amx. Empty = beside the source. |
pawnOmp.compilerArgs |
["-;+","-(+","-d3","-Z+"] |
Extra pawncc args. |
pawnOmp.compileOnSave |
false |
Compile on save. |
pawnOmp.compileOnSaveTarget |
mainScript |
On save, build the main script or the saved file. |
Building the extension
npm install
npm run compile # bundle to dist/extension.js
npx @vscode/vsce package # produce a .vsix
Press F5 in VS Code to launch an Extension Development Host for live testing.
License
MIT.
Roadmap to 1.0
This is a 0.x release: the compiler pipeline is tested on all three
platforms (and the macOS path is verified against a real server), but a few
things remain before a confident 1.0.0:
- Live-UI smoke testing of the editor features on real Windows and Linux
machines (binaries are verified; the extension UI has been exercised on macOS).
- Optional deeper language tooling (full LSP-style analysis) toward parity with
established Pawn extensions.
Until then, semver stays in the 0.x range to reflect honest maturity.
