zil-language README

This extension adds editing support for ZIL—the Zork Implementation Language—as well as MDL, which ZIL is based on. It associates itself with .zil and .mud files.

Features

This extension implements:

• Syntax highlighting
  • With "rainbow bracket" coloration to indicate nesting levels, based on Clojure Warrior by Nikita Prokopov
• Snippets
• Hover help
• Signature help
• Go to definition
• Go to symbol (per file or per workspace)
• ZILF REPL terminal
• ZILF/ZAPF build tasks
• Source-level debugging

Requirements

ZILF

Some features require an installation of ZILF (the ZIL compiler).

To set this up, download the latest release (e.g. zilf-0.9.0-win-x64.zip), and extract it somewhere. Navigate to the folder containing zilf.exe and zapf.exe when prompted by the extension, or set the zil.compiler.path and zil.assembler.path settings to point to those files.

ZLR (optional)

Debugging requires a recent build of ZLR, a Z-machine interpreter.

Such a build is included in this extension package, but if you have another one, you can configure the extension to use it instead.

NOTE: The debugger has only been tested on Windows so far. On other operating systems, you may be able to use the debugger by installing Mono.

Extension Settings

This extension contributes the following settings, which can be customized per folder:

• zil.autoDetect: enable/disable the ZIL build tasks
• zil.mainFile: the name of the main .zil file, or null to use the name of the folder with .zil added
• zil.compiler.path: path to zilf.exe
• zil.assembler.path: path to zapf.exe
• zil.debugger.path: path to ConsoleZLR.exe (optional)
• zil.rainbowBrackets.enabled: enable/disable the "rainbow brackets" feature
• zil.rainbowBrackets.bracketColors: list of colors to use for rainbow brackets
• zil.rainbowBrackets.cycleBracketColors: enable/disable repeating colors for very deep nesting levels
• zil.misplacedBracketStyle: appearance of misplaced brackets
• zil.matchedBracketStyle: appearance of the matched pair of brackets at the cursor

Known Issues

IntelliSense

• Definitions in ZIL code are only reindexed when the file is saved.

Editor

• When this extension's bracket highlighting conflicts with VS Code's, both pairs are highlighted.

Debugger

• The debugger has only been tested on Windows.
• Breakpoints can't be set while the game is running.
  • Workaround: Pause the game, set the breakpoint, resume.
• Source line breakpoints can't be set in some cases where the extension and ZILF calculate different relative paths for the source file.
  • Workaround: Set a named function breakpoint.

Acknowledgements

This project's ongoing development is made possible by the hosting services generously provided by Octobus and Clever Cloud.