VSCodium – Installation and Basic Configuration

Extensions installation

The “Extensions” tab allows us to install extensions that allow us to customise the working environment and increase productivity and efficiency when programming.

The “Extensions” tab can be accessed in a number of ways:

by clicking on the "Extensions" icon on the left-hand side of the panel, which looks like four squares
or via the menu View > Extensions
or on Linux press Ctrl+Shift+X
or on macOS press Shift+Command+X

Then, in the field “Search Extensions in Marketplace”, we enter:

Python

We choose an official Microsoft extension called “Python” (from ms-python). Once the extension is installed, VSCodium will have Python support, including syntax, IntelliSense, linting, debugging, etc.

Configuration of virtual environment (venv)

The virtual environment (venv) allows us to isolate dependencies and packages for each Python project. This allows us to avoid conflicts between different versions of packages, keep our installed packages in order, and easily move our project to another computer. Virtual environments also allow us to test different versions of packages on a single system without worrying about affecting the whole system.

To configure the virtual environment (venv) in VSCodium, proceed as follows:

Open our project folder

Select menu File > Open Folder
or on Linux press Ctrl+O
or on macOS press Command+O

We select the folder containing our project or we can create a new one and select it. In my case it will be the folder created in the previous post called “LearnPython”.

Activate terminal

Select menu Terminal > New Terminal
or on Linux press Ctrl+Shift+`
or on macOS press Ctrl+`

A terminal will open in the location of our folder. We can now activate the virtual environment we created earlier by typing the following command:

source my_venv/bin/activate

Where my_venv is the name of our virtual environment.

We can also create a new virtual environment:

python3 -m venv my_venv2

and then activate it:

source my_venv2/bin/activate

If required, we can now install additional Python modules in the selected virtual environment.

Type the command in the terminal:

pip install module_name

Open the interpreter selection window

Select menu View > Command Palette...
or on Linux press Ctrl+Shift+P
or on macOS press Shift+Command+P 

and select “Python: Select Interpreter”.

In the “Select Interpreter” window that opens

We select the Python interpreter installed in our activated virtual environment (venv).

The virtual environment (venv) is configured and ready to use in VSCodium.

Configuration of virtual environment (venv) using the “Python Environment Manager” extension

The “Python Environment Manager” extension allows us to manage all the Python environments available in our working directory from one place with a single click. This makes management much easier when we are dealing with multiple virtual environments.

To configure a virtual environment (venv) in VSCodium using the Python Environment Manager extension, proceed as follows:

Open our project folder

Select menu File > Open Folder
or on Linux press Ctrl+O
or on macOS press Command+O

We select the folder containing our project or we can create a new one and select it. In my case it will be the folder created in the previous post called “LearnPython”.

Installing the “Python Environment Manager” extension

Go to the “Extensions” tab by clicking on the “Extensions” icon, which looks like four squares, on the left-hand side of the screen.

or via the menu View > Extensions
or on Linux press Ctrl+Shift+X
or on macOS press Shift+Command+X

The next step is to install the “Python Environment Manager” extension. Once installed, the “Python Environment Manager” extension icon will appear in the left-hand pane.

Configuration of the “Python Environment Manager” extension

Open the “Python Environment Manager” tab by clicking on the new icon on the left-hand side. The first step is to update the window with the list of available Python environments. To do this, click on the “Refresh Environments” button in the top right-hand corner of the extension window. We will then see two lists, “Global” and “Venv”, of the Python environments available in our working directory. The “Global” list contains all available global Python interpreters. The “Venv” list contains our virtual Python environments.

Now, instead of using a terminal, we can simply select a Python environment from the list and then, by clicking on the appropriate icon, activate, add or remove virtual environments from our directory.

This way we have VSCodium set up to a basic degree and ready to learn Python.