Problem:
So, I've been using vscode primarily for go and the default experience was so nice I almost never had to dive into vscode settings to improve it. It spoiled me though.
I'm now learning powershell and I miss things like being able to hover over a custom type to see its definition, and autocompletion for things being automatically available without having to run part of a script for them to become available.
I like strongly typed programming and am creating a lot of custom classes in powershell to organize the code but whenever I go to instantiate a custom class I find myself losing time to searching for the class definition if I happened to forget what I named a property.
Question:
I'm hoping to improve the vscode powershell experience by putting completed custom classes and functions in a powershell module that is autoloaded by the workspace for the project when vscode opens. I'm thinking this will be the best way to get close to the go coding experience I've had previously where I can start calling a function or instantiate a custom class and have autocompletion available so I don't have to go searching for definitions If I happen to forget my parameter or property names.
Would that be the right way to go about addressing the issue and can be done? Or would there be a better way to go about this with powershell and vscode? I've seen suggestions to use powershell preview and vscode insider for better intellisense features in powershell but unfortunately I didn't see any difference.
After googling it a little more it looks like my complaint is a known limitation of the powershell extension for VSCode.
The powershell extension FAQ has:
PowerShell classes don't have proper reference/symbol support - #3
One of the blockers for this was that we still supported Windows PowerShell v3 and v4. However, we don't support v3 and v4 anymore so we can do this work but it's not on the roadmap at this time.
And the issue is being tracked by: Implement document and workspace symbol providers for classes #3
Related
Yes, I'm beginner. and I used Webstorm but now using Vscode.
I know to say 'extension' in Vscode.
But sometimes to say 'plugin' in Vscode.(ex. Do you know Vscode's Prettier plugin?)
Can others understand this?
I understand it like this Python's pip and Node's npm to understand.
Just different name.
Is that what I understand right?
There is very thin border line between the two.
Extension and plugins often confused people. And Mostly people believe both are same.
The main difference between the two is that plug-in provides extra functionality which does not modify the core functionality.
While extension is made for modifying core functionality, may be provided due to version change or improvement.
Securing plugins is more complex than extension.
Extension are individual identity so one extension needs one set of privileges, whereas plugins are more complicated and needs to identify privileges for each application runs plugins rather than a whole plugin.
Extension is specific to particular application. It extends functionality of a particular application or software.
While plug-in can be made generalized which may runs independently in coordination with particular application or software.
I'm looking to improve my own productivity by trying to figure out how to provide cmd+click functionality for variables declared at runtime. I work with a library that allows you to register objects to it at runtime to be accessed later — it would be great if I could cmd+click to definitions of these! How do you think I could achieve this? I'm open to any ideas. Thanks!
Edit:
Thoughts I have so far inspired by feedback from various Slack communities:
There is no such thing as 'runtime' when providing functionality in IDEs
We need to be able to teach the IDE about what definitions to expect. Whether this means writing an extension to use the VS Code API specifically for my use-case, or otherwise working within a system that generates files that the IDE already knows to look for, which allows it to connect the dots and provide the precious peek / goto definition functionality
Edit:
I'm starting work on a VS Code extension that reads a dotfile for configuration — I'll share what I find out as I go!
I'm developing an extension in VS Code to add language support for OpenSCAD (Script-based 3D modeling program). Currently, I have been working on a way to open / preview a file in OpenSCAD from VS Code, which I have been able to do successfully using my own preview manager.
My issue is that I want to add configurable naming formats when exporting an OpenSCAD file that use environment variables similar to those used in the tasks.json file. More info can be found here: https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/editor/variables-reference. As an example, taking the file test.scad and the export configuration ${fileBasenameNoExtension}.stl would export to the file test.stl.
Additionally, I want to add a custom variable, ${#} that would evaluate after all other variables as a unique version number to avoid duplicate exported files. Using the example file: test.scad and the export configuration, ${fileBasenameNoExtension}_${#}.stl, the extension would export to the file test_1.stl for the first time. Then, seeing that test_1.stl exists, it would export to test_2.stl, and so on. I implement similar functionality in all of my exporting utilities, so it is important I can implement it here.
Now that the intro is done, on to the actual question: To anyone who knows more about the VS Code API than I do, in order to best get the functionality described above, should I implement environment variable evaluation into my custom preview manager or reimplement the preview manager I have using tasks? Because I have already implemented my own preview manager that I am happy with, I would prefer to do the former. However, I have been unable to find any functions in the VS Code API that will evaluate the environment variables in a string. Is there a typescript function to evaluate environment variables in the API that I have missed?
If re-implementing this functionality using tasks is a better way to achieve my goal, would I have to sacrifice the control I have in my preview manager, such as being able to selectively kill open previews and dispalying active exports?
Or, is there a compromise that could use all of the power from tasks without losing any functionality I've already developed?
Link to branch of my extension's repository: https://github.com/Antyos/vscode-openscad/tree/PreviewModel
From my extension, how can I access the abstract syntax tree that VS Code has for the active file? I have been looking through the API docs but haven't been able to find anything. I also came across this SO question but both the question and answer are pretty opaque to me.
There's no thing like a common AST for files loaded into an editor. In fact, many file aren't even parsed at all, unless an extension is installed which does that.
The linked answer describes a way to implement language support (via a language server), which is not the same as getting a fictional AST from vscode.
Being really new to wx, I'm wondering if there is an IDE (especially for Linux) which would help me lay out a frame or dialog or whatever just to help me see what I'm doing. That means also creating the code for those changes.
I remember way back when using resource compilers for OS/2 and Windows that produced binaries that would then create the window, and was hoping for something similar (though obviously not binary if wx doesn't support that).
I use wxFormBuilder. It is written in wxWidgets, so it works on Linux quite well. It can generate C++ code or XRC files. Make sure you understand its philosophy, and use it like this:
generate C++ code for the GUI
don't edit the code wxFormBuilder generated, but create new files
in new files, derive new classes from the classes it generated
implement event handlers in you own class (wxFB creates virtual function for each event handler you wish to use)
I usually name the wxFormBuilder generated classes/files like, for example, MainFrameGUI, and one with implementation (derived one in which I write all my code) would be just MainFrame. This enables you to change the visual layout and regenerate C++ files from wxFB at any time without overwriting your code.
DialogBlocks works quite well for me, although sometimes you need to edit the code to fix errors manually. It has a property editor that seems advanced enough.
Just another options is wxGlade. It does not have the that much features as the others mentioned seem to have, but it works just good enough for me to not daring to switch.
I use Code::Blocks IDE from http://www.codeblocks.org which has
- built-in GUI editor
- Cross compilable, so you can use it under Linux, OSX and Windows.
But I still use wxFormBuilder with it instead of built-in wxSmith editor. But they are compatible with internal wxSmith.
For windows you've got "wx-devcpp" which is Blodsheed Dev C++ with some addons providing what you looking for
Here is project page
http://wxdsgn.sourceforge.net/