Modding Tools

<cat>Dev.Modding</cat>
<title>Modding Tools</title>

# Visual Studio Community (2019)

Technically speaking: code is just text files. 

However, you are a human and not a computer. 

* You need colours to show the layout of the code. 

* You need a program that will find and **highlight** errors in the code before you ever run it

* You need an autocompleted list of every possible option (known as **intellisense**)

That said, I still hear some arguments that punish noobs who don't know better:

##You only need a text editor! Just use Visual Studio Code!
___
No. 

Get the full-fledged program that is made to help you code easier and quicker.

[Download Here](https://visualstudio.microsoft.com/vs/)

# Github / Gitlab

Both [Github](https://www.github.com) and [Gitlab](https://www.gitlab.com) are free.

Both integrate natively with Visual Studio. 

**You do not save time by avoiding the 3 minutes it takes to create a git repo for your plugins**



#IL Spy

The Rust Server specifically ships with C# DLLs that can be decompiled.

While `compile` means to take code and turn it into a program, `decompile` does the opposite: turns the program back into it's code.

It won't be an exact copy after decompiling but it is very close.

It is extremely valuable to be able to see examples of code written by Facepunch in order for you to learn from examples and also to understand why the code your write in your mod is not working or doing what you expect.

[Download](https://github.com/icsharpcode/ILSpy/releases)

Scroll down until you see a `assets` button with an arrow down and download the option with `binaries` in the name and that ends with `.zip`. Extract it to a folder manually as there isn't an installer and create a desktop shortcut for easier access.

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