UPDATE 2014-12-29: The contents of this post is now available and updated on this page.

This post contains some features and tips for using the Kick Assembler (C64) Sublime Package described here.

Syntax coloring

For most C64/Kick Assembler things syntax coloring is available.

Auto complete

Although no specific auto complete support is supplied for c64/Kick Assembler, the auto complete features built in to Sublime Text will help a whole lot, the names of existing labels, macros and other stuff will pop up as you write. Very handy.

Navigate to…

Press Super+r/Ctrl+r to view a list of the Kick Assembler labels, namespaces, functions, macros and pseudofunctions in the current file.

Build errors

If you get a compile/build error, just press the F4 key to go to the file/line where the error occurred.

Debugging and break points

You can easily create break points and make the Vice emulator enter the monitor once the address of the break point is hit. In the Vice monitor you can the step and such. To enable break points, you need the following code in your file (or in a separate file and by using the .include directive):

//----------------------------------------------------------
// Code for creating the breakpoint file sent to Vice.
//----------------------------------------------------------
.var _useBinFolderForBreakpoints = cmdLineVars.get("usebin") == "true"
.var _createDebugFiles = cmdLineVars.get("afo") == "true"
.print "File creation " + [_createDebugFiles
	? "enabled (creating breakpoint file)"
	: "disabled (no breakpoint file created)"]
.var brkFile
.if(_createDebugFiles) {
	.if(_useBinFolderForBreakpoints)
		.eval brkFile = createFile("bin/breakpoints.txt")
	else
		.eval brkFile = createFile("breakpoints.txt")
}
.macro break() {
.if(_createDebugFiles) {
	.eval brkFile.writeln("break " + toHexString(*))
	}
}
//------------------------------------------------------

Once the above code is available to your code file, you can write :break() on a line of code and press Super+Shift+F7/Ctrl+Shift+F7 to run your code in Vice and make it stop once your breakpoint is hit. To insert a breakpoint you can also use the bp-snippet (see below).

Snippets

There is a few “built in” snippets in Kick Assembler C64. A snippet is a template, where the Sublime text editor lets you fill in missing details. You write a sequence of characters (trigger), select the snippet, and start filling in the missing values, pressing tab between each value.
The available snippets so far are (trigger in parenthesis):

• C64 subroutine (sub)
• Breakpoint (bp)
• For-loop (for)
• If statement (if)
• if-else statement (ifel)
• Macro (macro)
• Sinus curve generation (sin)
• Cosinus cure generation (cos)

The Kick Assembler script language

I really recommend learning the Kick Assembler script language by reading the Kick Assembler documentation.