Make the pygls-playground extension a workspace local extension

[alcarney]

Description (e.g. "Related to ...", etc.)

With the latest version of VSCode (v1.89), there is now the concept of a workspace local extension. Any valid VSCode extension underneath the .vscode/extensions directory of a project are recognised by the UI and can be installed as you would any other extension.

This PR converts the pygls-playground extension to be workspace local which should make it a lot easier to get up and running with the example servers.

• The user still has to install dependencies and build the extension as before
• From there however, they should be able to install the extension as they would any other and use the playground directly from their main VSCode instance.

What about older VSCode versions?

The extension is still compatible with older versions of VSCode, using the old 2-window approach. Assuming I've not missed anything, the only difference should be the folder from which the 2nd debug session is launched from.

Code review checklist (for code reviewer to complete)

• Pull request represents a single change (i.e. not fixing disparate/unrelated things in a single PR)
• Title summarizes what is changing
• Commit messages are meaningful (see this for details)
• Tests have been included and/or updated, as appropriate
• Docstrings have been included and/or updated, as appropriate
• Standalone docs have been updated accordingly

[tombh]

Is it easy to try this out? I see this extension available at the moment in my VSCode

It's by "noklam", is that you?

[alcarney]

I see this extension available at the moment in my VSCode

Hmm, looks like someone (not me) has published a version of the extension to the marketplace....

Is it easy to try this out?

Hopefully, it's easier than it used to be!

While you still have to build the extension yourself (steps are in the extension's README), once it's built you should be able to hit the Install Workspace Extension button, like in my screenshot above and have the playground Just Work^TM - no need to open multiple VSCode windows anymore.

[alcarney]

I've bumped the version number of the local extension so it should be easier to tell when you've found the right instance of it

[tombh]

I'm getting stuck again I'm afraid 😞 I think it's just that I'm not familiar with VSCode. Here's some general notes:

• Would npm install --no-save be better so as not to modify the package-lock.json files?
• The instructions in pygls-playground/README are really good, the only thing was when it came to playing with a language server: it doesn't say that the examples are at examples/servers/...
• I couldn't find Pygls > Client: Document Selector in the command pallete.
• It wasn't immediately clear to me that "pygls.client.documentSelector" is in .vscode/settings.json.
• How are the workspace files associated with the example servers? Eg how would I know how to play with workspace/table.txt?
• I got an an error launching the Pygls server 🥺 Error: spawn /home/tombh/Workspace/pygls/env/bin/python ENOENT, see screenshot.
• I get ECONNREFUSED when launching the debug server.

[alcarney]

• Would npm install --no-save be better so as not to modify the package-lock.json files?

Sure, didn't realise that was an option! :)

it doesn't say that the examples are at examples/servers/...

Good catch, I've added a note to the README.

• I couldn't find Pygls > Client: Document Selector in the command pallete.
• It wasn't immediately clear to me that "pygls.client.documentSelector" is in .vscode/settings.json.

Ah, I can see how that could be misleading, Pygls > Client: Document Selector was actually referring to a location in the Settings UI.
I've removed it in favour of "pygls.client.documentSelector" since you can't configure it via the UI anyway

• How are the workspace files associated with the example servers? Eg
  how would I know how to play with workspace/table.txt?

The only way to know is to look at the table in examples/servers/README.md and see which file is listed in the "Works With" column...

• I got an an error launching the Pygls server 🥺 Error: spawn /home/tombh/Workspace/pygls/env/bin/python ENOENT, see screenshot.

Looks like the extension chose the wrong working directory so Python wasn't finding the server...
Rather than have the extension try to "guess", I've included it in the default options in .vscode/settings.json. Hopefully that approach is more robust 🤞

• I get ECONNREFUSED when launching the debug server.

Probably a side effect of it choosing the wrong working directory.

[tombh]

• Great updates to the README.

• The only way to know is to look at the table in examples/servers/README.md and see which file is listed in the "Works With" column

  Oh, yes I didn't notice!

• You were right about the working directory, but your fix didn't work for me. When I manually changed it to: "pygls.server.cwd": "/home/tombh/Workspace/pygls/examples/servers", everything worked 🎉

[alcarney]

You were right about the working directory, but your fix didn't work for me.

Interesting... was it completely broken? Or was the ${workspaceFolder} "variable" expanding to the wrong dir?

[tombh]

Ah right, it appear it didn't expand it:

[alcarney]

To ask a potentially silly question 😅 .... did you restart VSCode after recompiling the extension? I don't think it's smart enough yet to detect changes to the extension after it's initially loaded.

[tombh]

Ah no, so the extension needs recompiling after changing settings.json? Or just when the pygls.server.cwd field changes?

Either way, I ran npm run compile and restarted VSCode and still the ${workspaceFolder} doesn't get expanded.

[alcarney]

so the extension needs recompiling after changing settings.json?

No, the issue is that extensions (for some reason 🤷) don't get variables like ${workspaceFolder} for free, so the recompile was to pull in additional code changes from 5fe2e7c which add support for the ${workspaceFolder} variable.

I'm assuming, since you have the updated config that you also have the latest code? In which case I'm not sure why it's not working for you... 🤔

[tombh]

Okay, I uninstalled the extension and reinstalled and ${workspaceFolder} was expanded 🥳 Niiice.