[Tool] Open Pawn — Cross-platform Pawn compiler & tools for VS Code

[Xyranaut]

Open Pawn — Cross-platform Pawn compiler & tools for VS Code (no Wine on macOS)

Open Pawn is a VS Code extension for SA-MP / open.mp Pawn development that bundles a native pawncc compiler for all three desktop platforms, allowing gamemodes to be compiled directly from the editor with no extra setup and no Wine/CrossOver on macOS.

Background
On Apple Silicon Macs there was no clean way to compile: the official pawn-lang macOS release ships a 32-bit i386 binary that cannot run on modern macOS, so the common workaround was running the Windows pawncc.exe under Wine. Wine is not actually required — building pawncc natively (with the default 32-bit cells) produces output the open.mp server accepts (AMX magic 0xF1E0). This extension bundles that native compiler for each OS.

Features

• Native pawncc bundled — Windows x64, macOS (Apple Silicon), and Linux x64. All verified producing open.mp-compatible AMX.
  
• Compile workflow — compile command, Ctrl/Cmd+Shift+B build task, compile-on-save, errors/warnings in the Problems panel.
  
• IntelliSense — autocomplete, hovers, signature help, go-to-definition, document/workspace symbols (indexed live from .inc / .pwn files).
  
• Syntax highlighting — Pawno-equivalent colours, including format placeholders and tags.
  
• Snippets — common callbacks and constructs (OnPlayerConnect, command handlers, dialogs, enum+data arrays, timers, etc.).
  
• Folding & a dependency-free formatter — no astyle WASM, so none of the extension-host crashes that affected other formatters.
  
• Smart compiler discovery — finds pawncc in qawno/, pawno/, on PATH, or uses the bundled one; legacy SA-MP layouts work out of the box. Falls back to a Wine wrapper only if desired.
  

How it compares
vs the existing Pawn Development Tool extension:

Feature	Pawn Development Tool	Open Pawn
Syntax highlighting	Yes	Yes
Snippets	Yes	Yes
Autocomplete / IntelliSense	Yes	Yes
Hover / Go-to-definition	Yes	Yes
Document / workspace symbols	Yes	Yes
Code folding	Yes	Yes
Document formatter	Yes (astyle WASM)	Yes (dependency-free, no host crashes)
Build task → pawncc	Yes	Yes
Problems-panel diagnostics	Partial	Yes
Bundles a compiler	No (bring your own)	Yes — Windows / macOS / Linux
Native macOS (no Wine)	No	Yes

Both can coexist, but running them together may produce duplicate autocomplete/hovers — Open Pawn will offer to help disable the other.

Platform support

• Windows 10/11 (x64) — pawncc.exe runs natively, works out of the box.
  
• macOS Apple Silicon — native pawncc bundled, no Wine.
  
• Linux x64 — native pawncc bundled.
  
• Intel Mac — build once with the included script.
  

Install

• Microsoft Marketplace
  
• Search "Open Pawn" in the VS Code Extensions panel
  
• or:

Code:

code --install-extension Mac-Andreas.open-pawn

(Also works in Cursor / VSCodium via Open VSX.)

Source & issues
github.com/Mac-Andreas/vscode-open-pawn — MIT licensed. Bug reports and pull requests welcome.

This is an early (0.1) release. The compiler pipeline is tested on all three platforms and verified against a real open.mp server; feedback is welcome, particularly from Windows and Linux users.