Typescript and Visual Studio Code IDE

Introduction

Typescript is a JavaScript that scales. It supports type annotation, can deduce types. It can compile upper versions of ECMAScript to lower versions like ES5.

Visual Studio Code is lightweight IDE that offers intellisence, syntax highlight, refactoring tools.

This tutorial describes how to use typescript for compiling typescript to ES5 (javascript 5) using Visual Studio Code IDE.

A working example can be cloned from https://github.com/stasberkov/espruino-ts-quickstart

Project uses gulp to run build tasks, typescript to compile ts code to javascript, espruino-cli to prepare code for Espruino and uploading to board.

Typescript type information for Espruino is used from https://www.npmjs.com/package/@types/espruino package.

How to use

Install Visual Studio Code, nodejs v6+.

Checkout https://github.com/stasberkov/espruino-ts-quickstart module into espruino-ts-quickstart directory. Inside espruino-ts-quickstart directory run command npm install. It shall install all required modules.

Then inside espruino-ts-quickstart directory run command code .

It shall run Visual Studio Code IDE and open then project.

Poject has 3 build tasks: build, espruino-console, send-to-espruino-console. To access it press Ctrl-Shift-B

build command compiles ts code to javascript and prepares it for espruino use.

espruino-console command runs Espruino console (check\adjust env-config.yaml config file).

send-to-espruino-console command uploads compiled code to board (run espruino console before using this command). Once you run this command then switch back to espruino-console view.

Project structure

src/app.ts -- sample code to compile and execute

app-config.yaml -- application configuration file. Used to generate src/app-config.ts source file that can be used in code.

app-config.user.yaml -- application configuration override (not for git file) file. Values from this file will be used instead corresponding values from app-config.yaml file.

gulpfile.js -- file with build tasks