Installing Visual Studio Code

Visual Studio Code (VS Code) is a free, lightweight code editor from Microsoft. Thanks to extensions, it supports the Daedalus language — syntax highlighting, autocompletion, and code navigation.

warning

Don't confuse it with Visual Studio (full IDE). Visual Studio Code is a separate, much lighter program.

Download

1. Go to https://code.visualstudio.com
2. Click Download for Windows (or the appropriate system)
3. Download the installer (.exe)

Installation

1. Run the downloaded installer
2. Accept the license
3. When selecting additional options, check:
   • Add "Open with Code" action to file context menu — lets you open files with right-click
   • Add "Open with Code" action to directory context menu — lets you open folders with right-click
   • Add to PATH — enables opening VS Code from terminal with the code command
4. Click Install and wait for completion

First Launch

After installation, launch VS Code. You'll see a welcome screen with theme and layout configuration options.

Opening the Scripts Folder

The most convenient way to work is to open the entire scripts folder as a workspace:

1. Click File → Open Folder (or Ctrl + K, Ctrl + O)
2. Navigate to the mod's scripts directory, e.g.:

   C:\GOG Games\Gothic II Gold\_work\Data\Scripts\

3. Click Select Folder

Now in the side panel (Explorer, Ctrl + Shift + E) you can see the entire file structure and quickly navigate between scripts.

Useful Keyboard Shortcuts

Shortcut	Action
Ctrl + P	Quick open file by name
Ctrl + Shift + F	Search in files (grep)
Ctrl + G	Go to line
Ctrl + D	Select next occurrence of word
Ctrl + Shift + P	Command palette
`Ctrl + ``	Open/close terminal
F12	Go to definition
Shift + F12	Find all references

Recommended Settings

For comfortable work with Daedalus scripts, it's worth adding a few settings. Press Ctrl + , to open settings, then click the {} icon in the top right corner (opens settings.json) and add:

{
  "files.encoding": "windows1250",
  "[daedalus]": {
    "editor.tabSize": 4,
    "editor.insertSpaces": false,
    "editor.semanticHighlighting.enabled": "configuredByTheme",
    "editor.inlayHints.enabled": "offUnlessPressed"
  }
}

info

Gothic scripts use Windows-1250 (Central European) encoding — this applies to Polish, German, and English scripts. If you're working with the Russian version of the game, change the encoding to Windows-1251 (windows1251).

Next Step

After installing VS Code, proceed to installing extensions — add-ons that provide full Daedalus language support.