We're trying to maintain a single set of Visual Studio Code extensions within our organisation, managed centrally. In our ideal scenario all end users have the same extensions installed, those extensions are updated on their behalf, and they are not able to install additional extensions.
We had achieved this to date by:
Installing extensions to a directory under C:\Program Files and setting the (undocumented) VSCODE_EXTENSIONS environment variable to point to that location.
Configuring a scheduled task (run as SYSTEM) that executes a powershell script with a list of extension_ids that calls code install-extension <extension_id> on each.
This solution worked until a breaking change in v1.74 expected to be able to write a new extensions.json file to the extensions directory.
Whilst we can get around this by creating a extensions.json file in that directory, I don't want to go too far down the wrong path. Is there a preferred method for centrally managing extensions for Visual Studio Code?
Related
I am looking to build a VSCode Extension around a CLI tool which we have been working on. An example command would be
myCLI retrieve SourceName
This would be run from a specific directory (for example c:/workspace/myproject) which has been setup and contains a settings.json file for some config arguments.
This CLI has been designed that the methods which are called (for example 'retrieve') are exposed directly so the CLI itself is a wrapper also.
When trying to call these methods directly from a VS Code Extension, it is always checking in the C:/Program Files/Microsoft VS Code directory, which I understand is where the Extension is excuting from.
Now, the question: Is there any way for me to force that any time we call the method (for example 'retrieve') that this would look into the current workspace folder (C:/workspace/myProject) , and not the VS Code one (C:/Program Files/Microsoft VS Code)?
Notes which may change answers
CommonJS (not yet ESM)
We currently cannot pass in a full qualified path (for example C:/workspace/myProject), it is only looking for ./settings.json since it depends on where the CLI has bene run from
I want to avoid calling the CLI directly, as I would like to bring many of the CLI features into the VS Code Extension directly to improve user friendliness.
I want to be able to extend/override some of the VS Code source in my extension, but I'm not sure how to do so. Is this possible?
Extensions (as the name says) can extend the functionality of the host application (here vscode), but they are separate code parts which have no access to the host application code and structures (except those particularly exported for use by extensions).
If you want to modify vscode source code then clone the repo, change the code and build your own vscode application.
I have a Project Group in Visual Studio 6 (.vbg). The projects are under source control (TFS). When I start debugging Visual studio there is an error Path/file access error: Path/name.vbg and dialog for "Save Project Group As" follows when canceled debugging runs without problems. To circumvent this annoyance I need to have the group file checked out or mark as readable just by file attribute. Is there a way how to avoid this behavior?
Notes: Situation was the same when Visual Source Safe was used. By my observation .vbg is not changed when the change is allowed. The problem can be connected with using English Windows with non English regional settings.
No. Just keep the VBG in version control, and make the files read-write in your local directory.
The easiest solution would be for you to save your VBG files to a folder outside of source control. It won't make a difference to the running directory - that is based on the EXE project (if any).
I am building a C++ solution with Visual Studio 2005.
Sometimes I open the solution in Visual Studio and build it from within the development environment. Other times I build it from the command line using msbuild.exe. I'm wondering if there is a way that I can determine which of these two types of builds I'm using at compile time (for example, a macro or something like like that). I want to change the path of my output files based on this determination. So, if I'm building from within Visual Studio I would put my output files in FolderA but if I'm building from the command line I would put my output files in FolderB. Is this possible?
Perhaps you can pass in a command-line parameter when building from the command-line that would indicate you are building the solution from the command-line. Otherwise, you can assume you are building from within Visual Studio.
I don't have the answer to your general question, but in order to change the output path, have you thought of adding project configurations ? You could copy project configurations and update the output path of the new ones.
I have just installed Microsoft Robotics Studio 2008 R2, and I must admit that I'm shocked to discover how paths are handled.
First of the studio wants to install itself into my personal profile (this is on Vista):
C:\Users\MyUserName\Microsoft Robotics Dev Studio 2008 R2
I assume this is because during development I have to write files to the robotics studio folder making C:\Program Files a no go.
Then when I create a new robotics project a lot of absolute paths pointing to the robotics studio is added to the project. If I check my project into source control and another developer checks it out onto his machine the absolute paths will not resolve and the project will not compile.
Also, since all services are collected into a single folder in the robotics studio folder developing multiple independent services on a single computer appears to be at least confusing.
Do you have any good strategies for handling this mess?
I have now figured out a way to change a Microsoft Robotics DSS Service visual studio project into something that you can compile and run in you own source tree independent of the installation path of the robotics studio. Here is a description of what you need to do to modify the project:
Add the robotics studio bin path to you PATH environment variable to be able to execute dssproxy.exe without supplying a full path. I have installed robotics studio into the program files folder to avoid accidentially writing files to the robotics studio folders.
Open the Properties page for the project and select the Build tab. In the Output section change the Output path to Debug\bin. For .NET projects it is customary to compile into folders bin\Debug and bin\Release but the robotics hosting service expects to live in a folder named bin and will store data in the folder above the bin folder.
Go to the Signing tab and select a new key in the Choose a strong name key file box. You can either generate your own key at that point or use the sn.exe utility to generate a new key. Or if you have your own policy for creating keys follow that. The sn.exe utility can be found in the tools folder of robotics studio.
In the Build Events tab edit Post-build event command line:
dssproxy.exe /dll:"$(TargetPath)" /proxyprojectpath:"$(ProjectDir)Proxy" /keyfile:"$(SolutionDir)Key.snk" $(ProxyDelaySign) $(CompactFrameworkProxyGen) /binpath:"." #(ReferencePath->'/referencepath:"%(RootDir)%(Directory) "', ' ')
Pay attention to the argument to /keyfile. Enter an expression that locates the strong name key file created in the previous step.
Copy the files DssHost.exe and DssHost.exe.config (or DssHost32.exe and DssHost32.exe.config for the 32 bit hosting service) from the robotics studio bin folder into the project folder and add these files to the project. Set the Build Action to Content and Copy to Output Directory to Copy if newer. Do the same for the manifest file for your service. Actually, the manifest file doesn't have to be in the same folder as the service, but copying it to the output folder enables you to do XCOPY deployment.
In the Debug tab change the Start external program to the DssHost.exe in the output folder of your project. You will have to build the project once to copy the file to the output folder. Clear the Working directory. Set the Command line arguments to
/p:50000 /t:50001 /m:DSSService1.manifest.xml
Change the manifest file name to the proper name in your project. You can modify the port numbers used either here or in the DssHost.exe.config file. If you are running in a protected Windows environment (UAC) you will have to use the httpreserve command to give yourself access to a particular port. You have to run this command as administrator.
Debug settings are not stored in the project file and each developer will have to create personal settings.
You should also update the Release configuration accordingly.
Since I was only interested in the CCR of MS Robotics, I just add these assemblies as a reference to any project I use it with and just be done with it.
This works without any problems. So if you are also only interested in the CCR and DSS part of the studio then this could be your solution
Reinier
we see this problem a lot. The absolute easiest solution is to specify the install directory when installing robotics studio to be "C:\program files\microsoft robotics studio". That way moving code between machines, checking out of source control, etc becomes a lot less problematic.
The other option is to use dssprojectmigration, which is included with RDS. Just run dssprojectmigration against your project directory, and it will correct all the hardcoded paths.