You are starting a new HW. You want to do it on your laptop (not in the lab). Here's what to do!
1. Open VS Code on your laptop, and look to the very bottom right at the green icon/text. You want it to say "WSL: Ubuntu" like this:
If you don't see that, but instead just the basic "><" sign, then you need to ask for a WSL/Ubuntu window. Click the green icon. This will open a text box with a drop-down that should have an option, "New WSL Window". Select that, and VS Code will open a new WSL window. You can close the old one.
2. Now open a folder where you want to save your programs. Go to the File menu and choose "Open Folder...". Navigate to your Desktop/sd211 folder or a subfolder inside of it where you will keep your files. You'll see your folder show up in a left panel. Click the small plus sign file button to create a new file!
Name the file (e.g., "hw1.py") and you're ready to go!
This part assumes your VS Code is setup properly. See above if not. Write a program and save it. Your VS Code should look something like this, using HW1 as a starter file:
You run your program by clicking the "run python file" icon on the top right. It's the small triangle. That will open a terminal on the bottom of your screen, and you'll see the program run.
You will start labs in the lab ... which is not your laptop. Your programs will be saved on the lab server, so how do you work on them from your laptop? The easiest way is to just have VS Code connect and open them over the remote connection. When you edit/save changes, they will stay on the lab server.
Open VS Code and look again at the bottom left green icon/text. Does it say "WSL: Ubuntu" or perhaps just "><"? You want it to instead say "SSH: midn.cs.usna.edu" like this:
If it doesn't, click the Remote Explorer icon on the left pane, and choose "SSH Targets" from the dropdown that appears. You should see "midn.cs.usna.edu" in the list if you setup your VS Code correctly, like so:
(if you don't see it, redo Step 5 of the setup instructions)
Click the little plus sign window next to midn.cs.usna.edu.
That should have opened a new VS Code window, and the bottom right says "SSH: midn.cs.usna.edu". Go to File and Open to find your lab. Edit and run as usual.