Create a comfortable working environment with the Visual Studio Code IDE and norns.

ide_setup.md

VSCode + norns

Create a comfortable working environment with the Visual Studio Code IDE and norns. I'm using a 13" Macbook Pro, 2017.

1 Cloning norns

In Maiden (which is awesome), we have access to several pre-defined scripts on initialization (e.g., audio, and tab). To get the same kind of access in our IDE, we need to have a cloned version of the norns repository. Go ahead and clone it to your local computer, wherever you like. Later, you'll be referencing the lua folder in that repo.

2 WiFi, SSH, and Matron

First (after plugging in the WiFi hub into the norns), make sure your laptop and norns are connected to the same WiFi network.

1. Create an SMB connection to the norns using Cmd + K from Finder in your MacOS (click the desktop). Then type either smb://norns.local or the IP address listed in the SYSTEM page on your norns. Log in with the norns credentials. You should now see the dust directory in your finder window under the norns.local (or norns IP Address) network location.

2. You'll also want to connect (via SSH) to the norns. Open a terminal, and type ssh we@norns.local or ssh we@<ip_address>. The password, again, is sleep. You can save this profile in your .ssh/config file like this:

   Host norns
       HostName norns.local OR <ip_address>
       User we

3. Now, you can open Matron by running

   norns/build/maiden-repl/maiden-repl

   To quit Matron, type q and Enter.

We'll use Matron in a bit.

If you want to store the variable for easy access later, you can put the following code in your .profile file in the home directory on norns:

alias matron="norns/build/maiden-repl/maiden-repl"

3 VS Code Setup

Open up VS Code, and open the folder where you keep your development code (presumably — preferably — a Git repo on norns somewhere).

1. Go to the marketplace and install the sumneko.lua Lua extension.

2. In your User (or Workplace) settings, you can either place the following in your settings.json file, or you can manually update the corresponding settings in the UI by typing Cmd + , in VS Code, and finding the so-named items.

       "Lua.workspace.library": {
           "path/to/norns/lua": true
       },
       "Lua.diagnostics.disable": [
           "lowercase-global"
       ]

   The "path/to/norns" is exactly the path to the norns directory we cloned above, and the lua folder is specifically that subdirectory. You can also add any other paths that contain scripts you want to reference in here, but likely you'll reference those by calling require in your script.

   As for the disabled "lowercase-global" diagnostic, I just do that because I don't like squiggly lines all over the place with lowercase function names.

Now we should have all the wonderful autocompletion tools that VS Code and the Lua extension have to offer! Sleep soundly.

Note: Sometimes, for this to work, you may need to type midi = require 'midi' at the top of your script (for instance, if you're using midi). Save it, and then you can delete the line. VS code caches the relationship for as long as the script file is open.

4 Running Scripts

Okay, now that we have a functioning connection with norns, a nice IDE landscape, and Matron, we need to get our scripts to run in the norns environment.

Now, I haven't quite figured out a smoother way to initiate this process, but the basic idea is this:

1. In the norns, navigate to the script you're working on, and activate it.

2. Open Matron in the SSH norns terminal (if you haven't already) using the instructions above, and run norns.script.load(norns.state.script). That should basically "rerun" the script that's already loaded. Note: After you do this for the first time, you probably won't need to do it again!

3. Now, to automate the process of rerunning your script each time you make an update (and want to see the results), add the following code to the bottom of your script, and then each time you want to rerun the script, run rerun() in Matron.

   function rerun()
       norns.script.load(norns.state.script)
   end

Caveats

Just a few things I found while troubleshooting this:

• Don't ever git pull norns from within the /norns directory in your norns ... That was a messy boo-boo on my part. Just do the typical SYSTEM > UPDATE as designed :)
• If you're going to change the name of a directory in the norns, make sure that either (A) the currently loaded script is not in that directory or (B) no script is loaded, or the system script is cleared.