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Opening an Assignment

How to download and open an assignment in VSCode.

Opening an Assignment in VSCode​

1. Open your file browser and navigate to your CS220 folder

  • If you do not already have a CS220-specific folder, you should make one so all your files are grouped together. Place it somewhere easy to remember.

2. Inside your CS220 folder, create a new folder for the assignment.

3. Download the provided ZIP file and place it inside the newly created assignment folder.

4. Right-click the ZIP archive and extract the contents into the folder.

5. Open VSCode, click on File -> Open Folder..., then navigate to the extracted contents.

6. Once you see the contents of the assignment (the folder containing a package.json), click Open.

7. Inside of VSCode, click on the explorer (top of the left sidebar) if it is not already revealed.

  • Your explorer should look very similar to this:

Explorer

  • After opening the folder, you may have received a notification on the bottom right of your screen prompting you to install some extensions. It is recommended that you do.

8. Open a VSCode Terminal

  • Click on Terminal -> New Terminal.
  • You should see a box on the bottom open up. This terminal is where you will execute commands to run, debug, test, and build assignments.
  • TIP: Use the up/down arrow keys to cycle through command history so you do not have to rewrite commands.
  • TIP: Press tab to auto-complete

9. Run npm install

  • Inside the terminal, type the command npm i (shorthand for npm install), then press enter.
  • You should see some output that mentions the dependencies being installed.
  • After it has finished, you should see a new node_modules/ folder in the explorer.

10. Run the assignment