We teach a Deep Learning course on our supercomputers, and one step which is prone for improvement/automation is the connection to the machines and text editing.
Our users come with extremely distinct backgrounds: from people who set up their own linux clusters to people who barely understand the concept of a text editor, given they always edited files on jupyter or collab.
What I would like to do is a double-click package users can download and it configures VS code to connect to our machines, downloads dependencies (like the extension for ssh), generate new ssh keys, and gives support for viewing image files, csv and so on.
My impression is that the way of doing so is, instead of a full package containing vs code and our configurations, would be to make an extension of VS code itself which does that, but I have no idea where to begin or if such a thing even makes sense.
Any pointers are welcome.
Related
Objective
I've a huge vscode Project:
2 Mio Files
100+ GB.
a lot of C-Files, but also build folders a lots of other irrelevant crap.
vscode is slow.
The project includes besides a lot of C/C++ files maybe in some parts cmake files, some codegen/glue-code, external headers, build scripts, external includes from SDK.
I want to use vscode to edit the code, not to compile or run it. The project consists besides the relevant c-files out of a lot of precompiled libs, helper tools, a huge amount of other files and images.
I want to speed my vscode setup up.
How to tell the user supporting tools of vscode, where to set their focus?
Are there any other options to speed up vscode?
Approach
My First Idea: "Make vscode ignore of everything I do not need and tell the tools precisely on what to focus and which leave aside."
Is there a way to make vscode ignore all of such folders in search and in the c++ indexer, the tool which supports code navigation and syntax highlighting?
Clarification / Additional info
I do not have configured vscode. I do not know how. Most the time intellisens/code heighlighting / autocompletion etc. works fine and I can jump around in that code. How ever I've encountered some huge projects, where intellisens failed half or in total or took a lot of time to do so. I do want to set up an project properly. I do not know where to find such settings and most important, which behavior it affects:
intellisense, please have a look only at folders ...
actially, ignore everything below those folders
take this single subfolder, but ignore everything around it.
btw, there is an totally different location for SDK headers, could you also use code and header from there?
I do use vscode to edit the code, I do not use it to compile or debug the code.
In short, I do not know which support tool (intellisense, c++ Extension, ???, ...) have which effect and where they can be configured. Like which vscode components make my life as easy as it is and how do I configure them?
EDIT: List of installed Plugins
as from #user requested :). If cmake is known for eating resources, I could discard it. Is it mandatory for the intellisens stuff?
Could discard python too, if necessary.
ms-vscode.cpptools
https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/editor/codebasics#_advanced-search-options
ms-vscode.cpptools-extension-pack
https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=ms-vscode.cpptools-extension-pack
ms-vscode.cpptools-themes
https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=ms-vscode.cpptools-themes
alefragnani.bookmarks
https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=alefragnani.Bookmarks
twxs.cmake
https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=twxs.cmake
ms-vscode.cmake-tools
https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=ms-vscode.cmake-tools
ms-python.python
https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=ms-python.python
ms-python.vscode-pylance
https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=ms-python.vscode-pylance
Short version: see topic
Detailed version:
I want to use a specific 3rd party theme for Windows. I'm already using an open source solution which I've compiled myself to disable Window's restriction on Themes.
In the past, when using 3rd party theme related mods that come with DLLs (for example authui.dll for the login ui, or imageres.dll for modding system icons), I avoid using unknown DLLs by simply copying the unknown DLL's theme related resources (such as Bitmaps, Icon groups or UI scripts) unto it's virgin MS Dll counterpart. I call this resource grafting, where resource are changed but the executable elements of DLLs or exes are left alone.
Going back to the theme I want to install, I used sha256 hashing to determine that only aero.msstyles which is also modifiable by resource hacker. So I did the same thing I usually do and transferred resources from the third party theme to Window's own aero.msstyles. Problem is that I ran into a type of resource that I am unable to read or know the contents of. It's called VARIANT. From some experiments done in a VM, it seems to be some kind of binary UI script that resource hacker is unable to decompile. I usually like to be able to read any UI scripts that I transfer but I am unable to do so with this one.
Would this constitute any real security risks? Can UI scripts be side-loaded with some kind of exploit? Seems unlikely to me since the function of a theme file (msstyle) is to coordinate the appearance of the system UI but I don't know enough about the inner working of the whole theming system to be sure. I thought I'd get some other point of views before I take the theme out of the Virtual Machine.
I used vBinDiff to compare the hex code the altered VARIANT/NORMAL binary to that of the original theme. You can also copy the binhexes and save them to two text files which you would compare with WinMerge.
vBinDiff and WinMerge will highlight what modifications and what additions/substractions were made to the binaries, displaying them side by side. I read through the differences, 90% of them were no larger than 4 octals (4bytes), typically what you would expect to see when modding colors using a hex editor. The biggest divergence was an added 32bytes of code.
There are two possible explanations for the such an addition: (1) the author added extra image resources and added the entries necessary to reference them, (2) there is some kind of unwanted code that has been slipped in.
To address the possibility of 2, I did a search to see how small trojan code can get. How likely is it that a trojan has been stuffed into 32bytes if compiled UI scripts? I found a few mentions of an old 17byte virus from the DOS era called trivial which I disegarded right away because it would become apparent very quickly given it's known behavior. As far as full fledged trojans with backdoor and downloading abilities, the smallest I found was 20kb (trojan tinba), discovered in 2012. There is also Catchy32 which is still considered a Trojan but with simpler and very specific functionalities and that one's about 580 bytes (reference). Based on this info, I established that it is highly unlikely (if not impossible) to slip any code in 32bytes of code and established that the resource in question is clean.
Mind you, this doesn't answer the question I asked (can binary UI script resources in a theme carry mal-code) but it does solve my dilemma. Thought I'd share it.
I can get#recommended:workspace extensions to work correctly but I am unsure as to why I cannot get the general #recommended to show anything. Where am I supposed to put the extensions.json file?
My goal here is to have PowerShell install VSCode, copy over some JSON files for specific settings and then have the user shown the companies recommended extensions to install once they open up VSCode.
I know I can force them installed with code --install-extensions but I want the user to be able to pick and choose from the companies recommended list based on what kind of files they'll be working on. What I can't seem to figure out is how to get that list to show except within a workspace.
For example, we have a Chef team, an Azure team, Linux team, etc. each needing different extensions.
The #recommended option has no config. VS Code decides which extension to recommend based on the file types that exists in the folder/workspace that you opened (official release info).
So, in your scenario, I guess the best option is to use Workspace Recommendations (#recommended:workspace), using a different recommendation for each team/project.
Theres a few questions similar to this, so I'll try to be clear as possible.
We have an existing, fairly large and complex, GWT webgame I have been asked to make work offline. It has to be offline in pretty much the strictest sense.
Imagine we have been told to make it work off a CD Rom.
So installation is allowed, but we cant expect the users to go to a Chrome/Firefox store and install it from there. It would need to be off the disc.
Likewise, altering of the browsers start-up flags would be unreasonable to expect of users.
Ideally, it would be nice if they just clicked a HTML file for the start page and it opened in their browsers of choice.
We successfully got it working this way in Firefox by adding;
"<add-linker name='xsiframe' />"
To our gwt.xml settings. This seems to solve any security issues FF has with local file access.
However, this does not solve the problem for Chrome.
The main game starts up, but various file requests are blocked due to security issues like these;
XMLHttpRequest cannot load file:///E:/Game%20projects/[Thorn]%20Game/ThornGame/text/messages_en.properties. Cross origin requests are only supported for protocol schemes: http, data, chrome, chrome-extension, https, chrome-extension-resource.MyApplication-0.js:34053 com_google_gwt_http_client_RequestBuilder_$doSend__Lcom_google_gwt_http_client_RequestBuilder_2Ljava_lang_String_2Lcom_google_gwt_http_client_RequestCallback_2Lcom_google_gwt_http_client_Request_2 MyApplication-0.js:34053
Now I was aware same origin policy issues might popup as during development we often tested locally using flags in chrome to bi-pass them.
Thing is...now I dont know how to get around them when we cant use startup flags.
Obviously in the example given its just the .properties file GWT uses to get some language related text. I could dump that inline in one way or another.
However, its only one of many,many,many files being blocked.
The whole game was made to run off *.txt game scripts on the sever - to allow easy updating by non-coders. Really the actual GWT code is just an "engine" and all the XMLHttpRequested files supply the actual "game".
These files are of various types; csv, txt, ntlist, jam.
The last two being custom extensions for what are really just txt files.
All these files are blocked by chromes security. It seems from what I can make out only images are allowed to be accessed locally.
Having all these files compiled in would just be impossible, as they are not fixed in number (ie, one central .txt file determains various scene .txt files which in turn determain various object files and directory's...).
Putting all this into a bundle would be nightmare to create and maintain.
So in essence I need some way to supply a offline version of a GWT project that can access a large number of various files in its subdirectories without security issues.
So far all I can think of is;
A) Theres something I can tell chrome via html or gwt that allows these files to be read in Chrome like FF can. (I suspect this isn't possible).
An alternative to XMLHttpRequest maybe?
B) I need to somehow package a game+a webbrowser in a executable package that has permission to access files in its directory's. (http://www.appcelerator.com/titanium ? ?? ).
C) I need to package and have the user run a full webserver that can then deliver all these files in a XMLHttp accessible way.
D) Bit of a funny one...we cant tell the user to add flags to browser start up...but Maybe I could write a game installer which just detects if they have Chrome or Firefox. It then opens up the games html in their browser with the correct flags for them? This would open up security issues if they browse elsewhere with that instance though, so Id presumably need other flags to disable the url bar if that's possible.
I am happy to make various changes to our code to achieve any of this - but as mentioned above theres no way to determain all the files needing to be accessed at compile time.
And finally, of course, it all has to be as easy as possible for the end user.
Ideally just clicking a html file, or installing something no more complex then a standard windows program.
Thanks for reading this rather long explanation, any pointers and ideas would be very welcome. I especially will appreciate multiple different options or feedback from anyone that's done this.
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I accepted the suggestion to use Chromiumembedded below.
This works and does what I need (and much much more)
To help others that might want to use it, I specifically made two critical changes to the example project;
Because CEF needs a absolute path to the web apps local html, I wrote a c++ function to get the directory the .exe was launched from. This was a platform specific implementation, so if supporting a few OS's (which CEF does) be sure to write dedicated code for each.
Because my webapp will make use of local files, I enabled the Chrome flag for this by changing the browser settings;
browser_settings.file_access_from_file_urls = STATE_ENABLED;
These two changes were enough to get my app working, but it is obviously the bare minimum to make a application. Hopefully my finding will help others.
I'd suggest going the wrapper route. That is, provide a minimal browser implementation that opens your files directly. Options are Chromium Embedded[1]. If the nature of the application absolutely requires the files to be served as non-file urls then bundle a minimal webserver, have the on-disk executable start the server and open the bundled browser with whatever startup arguments you want.
[1] https://bitbucket.org/chromiumembedded/cef
I'm looking for a diff/compare tool that shows differing lines from two text files, and gives me a space to comment on those files. Ideally this application would have three panes, pane one would be file A, pane two would file B and pane three would be a comment I can enter to on why the files are different.
We're going to be using this diff tool to compare test and production environments. Sometimes it'll be justifiable that the two files are different but we need to have a space to explain why. I'd rather not write those comments in the files themselves.
I've used TortosieMerge, WinDiff and Beyond Compare. I like beyond compare the most because it lets me see the whole file, just the differing lines or the differing lines in context.
Tools that sit inside Visual Studio or eclipse are fine too.
It sounds to me like you might want to use a code review tool for this (even if you're not really performing code reviews). They record diffs in a database and allow comments on those diffs.
A couple free ones are:
CodeStriker - I've used this and it works pretty well, but required more tweaking and mucking around in Perl that I'd have liked (that was a while ago, though)
Review Board - never used this, but it sure looks nice. I'm trying to get it installed at my current place of work.
I would like to suggest a high-efficiency software CodeGen to you. It's not only include TextCompare tools, but another Codec/Database tools is supported as well.
For more detail, please kindly access the Github repository.
https://github.com/work7z/CodeGen