ESO lua API intellisense for Visual Studio Code (update-45)

eso-api

This is an addon for the Lua extension by Sumneko that adds intellisense features to Visual Studio Code for the Elder Scrolls Online API.

This is similar to (and inspired by) Baertram’s ESOUI lua API autocompletion for JetBrains, but designed to work in VS Code.

Requirements

Visual Studio Code
Lua extension by Sumneko

Installation

The following only needs to be done once
Step 1
Install Visual Studio Code.
Step 2
Install the Lua extension by Sumneko from the Visual Studio Code Marketplace.
Step 3 (optional)
To use the Lua extension to automatically format your code when you save a file, add the following settings in VS Code’s settings.json:

“”: {
“editor.defaultFormatter”: “sumneko.lua”
},
“editor.formatOnSave”: true

Step 4
Create a folder on your machine to contain the files needed for eso-api intellisense. This can be anywhere you like, even inside your existing addons folder.
Step 5
Download the required release from here (or clone this repository), and extract the contents into the folder you just created. Older version (from update 45 onwards) can be found here.

The structure should look like this:

MyESOAPIFolder
└── eso-api
├── config.json
└── library
├── aliases.lua
├── api.lua
├── classes.lua
├── events.lua
├── fragments.lua
├── functions.lua
├── globals.lua
├── sounds.lua
├── zoclasses.lua
└── zoclasses.min

You will note above two similarly named files:

zoclasses.lua
zoclasses.min

zoclasses.lua contains definitions for objects and functions provided by ZOS in their lua code. This is a very large file and will result in a delay in the VS Code workspace being fully loaded of around 2 to 3 minutes, but does give good detail on those objects and functions.

zoclasses.min is a cut-down version of the above that loads much faster. The downside is that it does not contain any function definitions and only minimal object definitions.

If you want to use the min version for better initial performance, rename zoclasses.lua to zoclasses.max, then rename zoclasses.min to zoclasses.lua. After that, restart your VS Code instance if you have one running.

For each ESO Addon project

For this step, you will need to know the path to the folder you created in step 4 above. In the root of your ESO addon project (where your addon manifest file is – e.g. MyAddon.txt) add a new file named .luarc.json and add the following to it :

{
“$schema”: “https://raw.githubusercontent.com/LuaLS/vscode-lua/master/setting/schema.json”,
“workspace.checkThirdParty”: “Apply”,
“workspace.userThirdParty”:
}

The path to MyESOAPIFolder can be relative to your addon’s manifest file, or an absolute path if you created your folder somewhere else.

If everything is setup correctly you should see additional entries being automatically added to your .luarc.json file.

You may also see a large number of errors being displayed in VS Code’s Problems panel (press Ctrl+Shift+M if the panel is not currently visible), most of which are likely just formatting issues in the code. The easiest way to deal with those is to use the optional settings above and just use Ctrl+s in each file to auto-format and save it.

Optional Steps
Globals that are not part of the API, such as ESO libraries or localisation constants, will not be handled by the above setup and will instead be flagged as undefined-global or undefined-field errors. To get around this you can do the following:

Step 1
Create a folder called esoapi in the root of your addon project folder, this can actually be any name you like, we’re just using esoapi as an example.

Step 2
Add a file within that folder called local.lua, this can be any filename so long as it ends in .lua, we’re using local.lua here as an example.

Step 3
Add the following into the local.lua file:

— @meta
— @diagnostics disable

We can use this file to store any definitions that are specific to this addon but not part of any ZOS provided code, like e.g. LibAddonMenu which would be added as follows:

— @meta
— @diagnostics disable

LibAddonMenu2 = {}

The annotations that this file can contain can be found in the Lua Language Server documentation

Step 4
Amend the .luarc.json file as follows:

“workspace.userThirdParty”:

Usage

Open the project in Visual Studio Code.
Make sure the Lua extension by Sumneko is enabled.
Modify your addon folder files as shown in For Each ESO Addon Project above.
Wait for the workspace to fully load. Progress will be shown in the bottom left corner of the VS Code main window. If you opted to use the full zoclasses.lua this process will take a couple of minutes, otherwise it should be only a few seconds.
Once the workspace is fully loaded you should start to see any issues present in your code being shown to you in the VS Code Problems panel. Press Ctrl+Shift+M if the panel is not currently visible. You can jump to the relevant line in your code by clicking on the issue in the Problems panel.

Contributing

Feel free to submit issues or pull requests if you have any improvements or bug fixes.

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License.

DISCLAIMER
This code is not created by, affiliated with or sponsored by ZeniMax Media Inc. or its affiliates. The Elder Scrolls and related logos are registered trademarks or trademarks of ZeniMax Media Inc. in the United States and/or other countries. All rights reserved.