Your First Program problem

[mwsheeler]

After manually configuring a folder that looks as close to the one in the tutorial as I could get (I could not replicate the .git folder because I do not know what is inside it), I was able to get past my last problem where the Run Build Task…produced an error. This time it worked and showed me " Build finished successfully. Here is the screen grab.

Then the tutorial says to hit a key in the terminal, which I do… but my Terminal then goes blank, totally black. In the tutorial it brings up his file location ( I assume where he saved his hello.cpp to), PS D:\GameDev\Project>

He then types .\hello and the next line shows what he wrote, " Hello, my name is Stephen." Without the quotes I put in.

For me there is no Terminal anymore since clicking a key. Here is what I get after clicking a key in the Terminal area shown on the above screen grab;

I tried opening a new Terminal and typing the .\hello but that just brought up a lot of text that was partially red and showed error upon error.

So for the second day in a row I cannot get this to work. My screwing around to create what I see in the tutorial (that automatically appears in the tutorial but does not appear when I do it, hence having to manually construct it), only gets me partial success. I now get past the “Run Build Task…” but I cannot compile. I have the Raylib compiler set up as per the tutorial…just so you know, that part went fine.

Am I the only one experiencing all these problems?

After this last edit. I saved my hello.cpp. When I opened it with VS Code and tried to Run Build Task… it brought up the dialogue Do You Trust the authors of the files in this workspace? and when I clicked on “Trust Workspace and Continue” it gave the same error as yesterday, " No Build Task to run found. Configure Build task"

So I can go no further as it is obvious that I don’t know what the heck I am doing. Nothing at all works.

[mwsheeler]

By the way…in all of my 73 years on this planet and having paid for and done many tutorials on many subjects, mostly about 2D and 3D graphics…and some Python tutorials I have never experienced a set of tutorials where I hit walls in the first ones like I am hitting here.

I really do appreciate all the help that I am getting on this discussion forum but it really is frustrating knowing that I cannot proceed (other than to repeat what I have done over and over as I have done all day yesterday and most of today) until I find that someone has replied to this new thread asking for help. I feel I will eventually be ignored on this forum as someone who is “beyond help.”

[orcmid]

@mwsheeler Michael, I fought with the empty terminal and then having it disappear also. Part of the problem is the terminal window is not very high and the output from the compile (successful or not) has scrolled up out of view.

I found that, without clicking on the Terminal Window, if I make it larger by lifting the dividing line with the pane above it, I can see output I missed and that shows up so fast that we might not have seen it go by. I think the scroll wheel will also help.

There’s more about where you type to run your program. That’s another topic.

[Tuomo_T]

Hi there!

We don’t want you to ever feel like you’re a “lost cause” as I’m here to help however I can with the resources available to me.

That said, you can add a new terminal window by going to Terminal > New Terminal. That should like you type the command shown in the lecture.

[mwsheeler]

Thank you to orcmid and Tuomo,

First thank you orcmid for the step by step sets of screen grabs you created. I did not have GIT installed. That solved the step where File Explorer opened up to asked where to store everything. That helped a lot.

I created the little program and ran the Run Build Task. That was successful. Then the first time I clicked in the terminal area and hit a key on my keyboard it all disappeared. I scrolled and scrolled but no terminal area appeared.

So I started a new file and did it all again. Again it was successful after Run Build Task. This second time, after licking in the terminal area and hitting a key on my keyboard I go an error message.

I am going to place both screengrabs here. Maybe the error message can give someone a clue where I went wrong. Thanks again for persevering here with me through this.

I did not type the yellow .\hello. Just appeared when I hit a key on my keyboard in the terminal area after the “Build finished sucessfully” appeared (in the first screengrab).

[DanM]

You have created the hello.cpp file within the .vscode folder, it should be at the root in the same folder as the workspace file.

[orcmid]

@DanM @mwsheeler Michael, Dan is correct. You should not be putting anything in the .vscode subfolder. That is used by .vscode for its own housekeeping and preservation of settings.

The reason .\hello failed is because hello.exe is not where PS is looking. The error message is rather misleading though.

I must tell you I am not happy with how VS Code’s Terminal window is a fragile thing and providing things like command-line prompts that are not covered in this course. It is easy to become derailed here. because a beginner is not going to know what the heck they are looking at.

[mwsheeler]

Thanks orcmid,

I am having a bit more success though not total, since Stephen reworked his video on Installation and Setup. That cleared up a few things I was struggling with.

I will muddle through. Thank you once again for your thoughts and suggestions.