I’m a college junior building Tomato, a custom 32-bit computer with a dual-LUT ALU running on an Artix-7 FPGA. Viewing its HDMI output initially meant keeping an external monitor nearby. A USB capture card made that more convenient, but I still needed another application just to see the picture while writing code in VS Code.

So I built FramePort: an extension that puts the live video in an editor tab beside the code.

It lets me watch the hardware output, freeze the preview, adjust scaling, save PNG screenshots, and record silent MP4 clips. Pausing the preview doesn’t pause recording, so I can inspect a frame without losing what happens next.

Although Tomato started the project, FramePort isn’t FPGA-specific—it also supports other USB video sources.

Available on the VS Code Marketplace and Open VSX. Currently a public preview: device capture requires macOS, desktop VS Code, and FFmpeg. HDMI input requires a USB capture card; keyboard and mouse input to the target remain sepa