T.A.R.G.E.T. Script for VS Code

Language support for the Thrustmaster T.A.R.G.E.T. HOTAS scripting language (.tmc, .tmh, .ttm) — highlighting, completion, diagnostics, and compiling and running your script without leaving the editor.

Unofficial. A community extension, not made or supported by Thrustmaster / Guillemot. Bug reports belong here.

Requirements

VS Code 1.85+. Nothing else is required to read and write scripts: highlighting, snippets, completion, hover and the outline all work on their own, because the builtin tables ship with the extension.

T.A.R.G.E.T. installed is needed for three things — compiling and running, resolving include "target.tmh", and the checks that need to know every name your project declares (those stay quiet rather than guess when the headers cannot be found). It is auto-detected; set targetScript.installPath if it lives somewhere unusual.

Windows, or WSL. Compiling and running invoke Thrustmaster's own tools, which are Windows executables. From WSL they are reached through interop. Everything else is platform-independent.

Quick start

1. Install the extension and open a .tmc, .tmh or .ttm file — it is recognised automatically.
2. In a new .tmc, type tmcmain and press Tab. That writes the skeleton every TARGET script needs: include "target.tmh", a main() that calls Init(), and an EventHandle that calls DefaultMapping().
3. Start typing a mapping — MapKey(&Joystick, — and the completion list narrows to that device's controls, in button order.
4. Press Ctrl+Shift+P → TARGET: Check Script for Compile Errors. It compiles without running, so it cannot touch your HOTAS.
5. When it is clean, TARGET: Run Script.

Usage

Commands

Compile and Run are also on the editor title bar. While a script runs, a TARGET: <script> indicator sits in the status bar — click it to stop. Run a header and it compiles the .tmc beside it, since a header alone is not a compilation unit.

If your scripts live on the WSL filesystem, Run offers to stage a copy on a Windows drive — TARGET cannot load a script over a \\wsl.localhost\ path.

Settings

Features

Syntax highlighting, including the hard part: EXEC() and REXEC() take TARGET source code inside a string literal, and that code is highlighted as code.

Device-aware completion. Nobody remembers whether the button is TG1, TS1 or TBTN1. Type MapKey(&T16000, and you get the T.16000M's controls — only those, in button order. It follows handles your script binds itself, and axis functions rank that device's axes first.

Plain-English control names. EFLNORM is meaningless; "Engine Fuel Flow Left" is not. Taken from the per-device diagrams TARGET installs. USB[0x2C] is named as Space, and typing inside USB[ lists every scancode by key name.

Hover and signature help for all 171 builtins with real parameter lists and default values — and for your own functions, including the comment above them, looked up across include files. Outline and go-to-definition work across them too.

Diagnostics for what the TARGET compiler reports poorly or not at all. A missing main(), an event handler that does not exist, a call to a function defined nowhere, a header included twice, C syntax TARGET lacks — all compile cleanly and fail mid-flight instead. → every check, and why

What the game does with the key. A script sends keystrokes and virtual buttons; the game decides what they mean. The extension reads your game's own binding files — Elite Dangerous .binds, DCS World .diff.lua, Star Citizen ActionMaps — and tells you. It answers for the whole chord, and narrows to the preset the game will really load. → more

How it works

TARGET's own behaviour had to be established before much of this could be relied on — what the compiler actually checks, how many buttons the virtual device really has, how each game stores its bindings. That working out lives with the code: docs/.

Acknowledgements

Validated against ED_Enhanced_T16000, a large real-world Elite Dangerous TARGET script.

License

MIT. "Thrustmaster" and "T.A.R.G.E.T." are trademarks of Guillemot Corporation S.A., used here only to say what this extension is for. The extension is not affiliated with them.