Setup VSCode with ROS2

Open a terminal. Navigate to your colcon workspace.

cd colcon_ws

Source ros

source /opt/ros/iron/setup.zsh

Open VSCode

code .

Install the ROS extension (from Microsoft). You should see a ROS2.iron in the lower left corner.

Now you should be able to build the code with Ctrl+Shift+B

You can use multiple commands with Ctrl+Shift+P and then type ROS.

Debugging

You can debug launch files but only ones that are written in Python. These cannot include further xml launch files. It makes sense to create a small test launch with only the node that you want to debug and start the rest independently. An example vscode launch configuration and the corresponding python launch file can be seen below:

{
    // Use IntelliSense to learn about possible 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": "head behavior",
            "request": "launch",
            "target": "$HOME/colcon_ws/install/bitbots_head_behavior/share/bitbots_head_behavior/launch/test.py",
            "launch": "[rviz, gz, gzclient, gzserver]",
            "type": "ros"
        }
    ]
}

import os
from ament_index_python import get_package_share_directory
from launch import LaunchDescription
from launch_ros.actions import Node

def generate_launch_description():
    body_config = os.path.join(get_package_share_directory('bitbots_body_behavior'), 'config', 'body_behavior.yaml')
    head_config = os.path.join(get_package_share_directory('bitbots_head_behavior'), 'config', 'head_config.yaml')

    node = Node(
            package='bitbots_head_behavior',
            namespace='',
            executable='head_node',
            parameters=[
                body_config,
                head_config,
                {
                    "camera_frame": "camera",
                    "base_link_frame": "base_link",
                    "odom_frame": "odom",
                    "map_frame": "map",
                    "base_footprint_frame": "base_footprint"
                }],
            remappings=[("/head_motor_goals", "/DynamixelController/command")]
            )

    return LaunchDescription([node])