Should MetaQuotes offer official support for VS Code?
Reading through this thread, I completely share the frustration. It is highly unlikely that MetaQuotes will ever offer official, first-party support for VS Code, as they are heavily invested in keeping users within the MetaEditor ecosystem.
The fallback to Print() statements and struggling with compile errors in external editors has been a massive pain point for my own workflow. Because I couldn't wait for an official solution, I ended up building one myself.
(Disclosure: I am the author of the ngsoftware.mql-clangd extension).
If you want to use VS Code without losing IDE features, I highly recommend looking into a Clangd-based approach rather than standard C++ extensions. I published the MQL Clangd extension on the VS Code Marketplace specifically to solve what's discussed here: it provides actual IntelliSense (not just syntax highlighting), real-time debugging directly in VS Code, and live-logging outside the terminal.
It basically turns VS Code into a fully functional MQL environment. You can find it by searching the VS Code extensions tab. Would love to hear your feedback if any of you try it out!"
The fallback to Print() statements and struggling with compile errors in external editors has been a massive pain point for my own workflow. Because I couldn't wait for an official solution, I ended up building one myself.
(Disclosure: I am the author of the ngsoftware.mql-clangd extension).
If you want to use VS Code without losing IDE features, I highly recommend looking into a Clangd-based approach rather than standard C++ extensions. I published the MQL Clangd extension on the VS Code Marketplace specifically to solve what's discussed here: it provides actual IntelliSense (not just syntax highlighting), real-time debugging directly in VS Code, and live-logging outside the terminal.
It basically turns VS Code into a fully functional MQL environment. You can find it by searching the VS Code extensions tab. Would love to hear your feedback if any of you try it out!"
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I don't know about you guys, but I'd love for their to be official support for VS Code.
It's clear that VS Code is superior to MetaEditor, but there's certain things that MetaEditor does that makes life easier for MT4/MT5 programming.
What's currently lacking on VS Code (to the best of my knowledge)
1. Debugging support: you can't debug like you normally would with a language supported on VS Code. This is big, IMO, because writing Print/printf statements every time you want to check something can slow you down, and it doesn't allow you to go through line-by-line when debugging an issue.
2. Compiling isn't perfect: you have to write a batch file or powershell script that calls metaeditor to compile, and *I think* you have to have a unique version for every indicator/EA/script, unless there's a way to grab the file path and insert it programmatically. Also, from one of the guides found on this site for using VS Code, there can be issues with compiling depending on the formatting of the file name.
3. Compiling on VS Code doesn't re-initalize the indicator/EA on MT4/MT5: every time you compile on VS Code, you have to manually remove the indicator and add it to the chart again.
4. MQL Storage support: This is no big deal, IMO, since most people prefer using GitHub/Bitbucket/Gitlab/etc (which offers a whole lot more features and functionality than MQL Storage's VisualSVN).
5. False positives on syntax errors: Not only do you have to tell VS Code to treat an MQH file as CPP file, but MQL has its own syntax that isn't recognized as part of C++, so it shows squiggly line errors under valid MQL syntax.
6. Context-Sensitive Help: better known as selecting a syntax and pressing F1 to launch the documentation for it, this is a very handy feature to have. While there is a way that allows you to launch the docs from VS Code for the selected syntax, it doesn't work for every keyword, and the keyword must be highlighted rather than having the cursor caret on the text you want to search.
Anyway, I'd love to see MetaQuotes provide official support for VS Code. The custom indicators/experts/scripts are part of what makes MT4/MT5 so popular, so MetaQuotes should do everything possible to make it more pleasant for us to make their product better.