How to Debug with Visual Studio Code

[ViDiBi]

Hi everybody!

I’m very new to the MagicMirror Project but wanted to develop my own Module, since I got everything running on my Pi :-)

Now I’d like to use Visual Studio Code to debug existing Modules and then develop my own module. Therefore I need a bit of assistance:

I copied the MagicMirror Files to a folder and was able to run “npm install” with Power Shell and used this launch.json which I found in the forum to get it run in electron brwoser:

{
    // Use IntelliSense to learn about possible Node.js debug attributes.
    // Hover to view descriptions of existing attributes.
    // For more information, visit: https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?linkid=830387
    "version": "0.2.0",
    "configurations": [
        {
            "name": "Launch",
            "type": "node",
            "request": "launch",
            "program": "${workspaceRoot}\\js\\electron.js",
            "stopOnEntry": false,
            "args": [],
            "cwd": "${workspaceRoot}",
            "runtimeExecutable": "${workspaceRoot}\\node_modules\\.bin\\electron",
            "runtimeArgs": [
                ".",
                "--enable-logging"
            ],
            "env": {},
            "console": "integratedTerminal",
            "sourceMaps": false,
            "outDir": null
        },
        {
            "name": "Attach",
            "type": "node",
            "request": "attach",
            "port": 5858,
            "sourceMaps": false,
            "outDir": null
        }
    ]
}

Do I need do do anything else because if I add only the clock module it says that the node helper is missing for that module…

No helper found for module: clock.

Can anyone give me some kind of how to do this?

Thank you so much!

Victor

[sdetweil]

@ViDiBi clock module doesn’t use a node_helper. not required.

I haven’t been able to use vscode to debug mm modules myself. the browser side still has to use the browser debugger (ctrl-shift-i toggle on/off)

see my sample module, https://github.com/sdetweil/SampleModule, which implements the mm module spec.
and uses the module/helper communications, config, timers, and selective display of content

[ViDiBi]

@sdetweil Thank you for your help :-) I’ll have a look at your module :-)

There’s one more thing I was trying: I made a breakpoint in the getDom area of a module and if won’t stop in debugging at that point :-( Is this a bug or just not possible?

[sdetweil]

@ViDiBi if you use the browser debugger it will. I have never been able to get the vscode debugger to work on this app

I REALLY want to be able to debug from my desktop system to the mm system, as I usually don’t have keyboard/mouse on mm system.

so far, the ability to use another browser to open mm webpage on my desktop chrome and use browser debugger has worked. but not all apps provide that remoting browser capability.

[sdetweil]

but the browser debugger doesn’t work on node_helpers, as they don’t run in browser of course

[ViDiBi]

But the funny thing is, that within the node_helpers the breakpoint works but in the MMM-ModuleName.ja it doesn’t :-(

[sdetweil]

@ViDiBi yeh, you are debugging in process for the node_helper, and not for the browser…