With help of the greate extension "cpptools", vscode already has the capablities of build, debug and some sort of code auto-complete, but
You have to write configurations in c_cpp_property.json by manual
You have to write build script in tasks.json by manual
You have to write Launch script in launch.json by manual
The workspace is structured by folders instead of projects
In short: it's not like Visual Studio, in which you don't have to worry about anything above. When you open a file in a vs project, configs like include/defines are prepared automatically so that auto-complete works well, and you can build/debug your target simply by clicking some buttons.
Cpp Solution Explorer will make vscode more "Visual Studio" likely, with the help of CMake and cpptools extension. It will
Parse CMakeLists.txt under the root folder
Load projects in CMakeLists.txt and struct the source files by projects
Generate c_cpp_property.json with the information (include pathes, preprocessor defines) get from cmake
Generate build script and launch script automatically
Update c_cpp_property.json whenever you select a source file, so that intellisense works all the time
Also you can build/rebuild/clean in project view.
Features
Load cmake project automatically
Reload cmake project after CMakeLists.txt changes
Auto generate c_cpp_property.json, launch.json and tasks.json, makes auto-complete, build and debug works
You can also build/rebuild/clean target from inside project view
Search strings in all files under solution (shift+alt+f/shift+option+f)
Pickup a file from quick-pickup panel (shift+alt+o/shift+option+o)
Pickup a c++ function from quick-pickup panel (shift+alt+s/shift+option+s)
Inspiration
CLion
Clion also use cmake as its underlining project engine, it will run cmake -G CodeBlock ... to get a CodeBlock project, inside which we can get everything we want.
Cpp Solution Explorer also generate CodeBlock project in *nix systems, but not for Windows. In Windows we generate Visual Studio solutions. Cpp Solution Explorer works on both backend.
vscode-solution-explorer
This is a great extension that makes vscode so powerfull that you can forget about Visual Studio ( actually you can't :-) ) if you are from .Net world.
