Editing/IDEs

Visual Studio Code is recommended, since it provides decent support for all the languages Anki uses. To set up the recommended workspace settings for VS Code, please see below.

For editing Python, PyCharm/IntelliJ's type checking/completion is a bit nicer than VS Code, but VS Code has improved considerably in a short span of time.

There are a few steps you'll want to take before you start using an IDE.

Initial Setup

Python Environment

For code completion of external Python modules, you'll need to create a Python venv and install Anki's dependencies into it. For example:

$ python3.9 -m venv ~/pyenv
$ ~/pyenv/bin/pip install -r python/requirements.txt
$ ~/pyenv/bin/pip install pyqt6 pyqt6-webengine

After doing so, you can set your editor's Python path to ~/pyenv/bin/python, eg in VS Code, ctrl/cmd+shift+p, then 'python: select interpreter'.

Rust

If you're planning to edit Rust code, install Rustup, then run 'rustup install nightly'.

Build First

Code completion partly depends on files that are generated as part of the regular build process, so for things to work correctly, use './run' or 'tools/build' prior to using code completion.

Visual Studio Code

Setting up Recommended Workspace Settings

To start off with some default workspace settings that are optimized for Anki development, please head to the project root and then run:

cp -r .vscode.dist .vscode

Installing Recommended Extensions

Once the workspace settings are set up, open the root of the repo in VS Code to see and install a number of recommended extensions.

PyCharm/IntelliJ

If you decide to use PyCharm instead of VS Code, there are somethings to be aware of.

Slowdowns

The build process links a large file tree into .bazel in the repo dir. JetBrains products will try to monitor this folder for changes, and index the files inside it, which will lead to bad performance. Excluding the folder in the project settings is not sufficient unfortunately.

A workaround is to add .bazel and node_modules to the IDE-global ignores: https://intellij-support.jetbrains.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/115000721750-Excluding-directories-globally

Pylib References

You'll need to use File>Project Structure to tell IntelliJ that pylib/ is a sources root, so it knows references to 'anki' in aqt are valid.

2.4 KiB Raw Blame History