6.0 KiB
@tldraw/vscode
This folder contains the source for the tldraw VS Code extension.
Developing
1. Install dependencies
- Run
yarn
from the root folder
2. Start the editor
In the root folder:
- Run
yarn dev:vscode
.
This will start the development server for the apps/vscode/editor
project and open the apps/vscode/extension
folder in a new VS Code window.
In the apps/vscode/extension
window, open the terminal and:
- Install dependencies (
yarn
) - Start the VS Code debugger (
Menu > Run > Start Debugging
or by pressingF5
). This will open another VS Code window with the extension running.
Open a .tldr
file from the file explorer or create a new .tldr
file from the command palette.
3. Debugging
You can use standard debugging techniques like console.log
, which will be displayed in the VS Code window with the extension running. It will display logs both from the Extension and the Editor. VS Code editor with the Extension folder will show more detailed logs from the Extension project. You can also use a debugger.
The code is hot-reloaded, so the developer experience is quite nice.
Publishing
Update the CHANGELOG.md
with the new version number and the changes.
To publish:
- Install
vsce
globally - Run
vsce login tldraw-org
and sign in. For this to work you need to create a personal access token and you also need to be added to thetldraw-org
organization on the Visual Studio Marketplace.
In the apps/vscode/extension
folder:
- Run
yarn package
- Run
yarn publish
Project overview
The Visual Studio Code extension is made of two projects:
1. Extension project
Extension project is under apps/vscode/extension
and contains the code needed to run a VS Code Extension - it implements the required VS Code interfaces so that VS Code can call our extension and start running it.
It registers the command for generating a new .tldr
file, custom editor for .tldr
files, and it communicates with the WebViews that run @tldraw/editor
(more on this later on).
VS Code Extension API offers two ways for adding new editors: CustomEditor
and CustomTextEditor
. We are using CustomEditor
, even though it means we have to do a bit more work and maintain the contents of the document ourselves. This allows us to better support features like undo
, redo
, and revert
, since we are in complete control of the contents of the document.
The custom editor logic lives in TldrawDocument
, where we handle all the required custom editor operations like reading the file from disk, saving the file, backups, reverting, etc. When a .tldr
file is opened a new instance of a TldrawDocument
is created and this instance then serves as the underlying document model for displaying in the VS Code editors for editing this file. You can open the same file in multiple editors, but even then only a single instance of TldrawDocument
is created per file.
When a users opens a file a new WebView is created by the TldrawWebviewManager
and the file's contents are sent do it. WebViews then show our editor project, which is described below.
2. Editor project
Editor project is under apps/vscode/editor
. When a file is opened a new instance of a WebView is created and we show @tldraw/editor
this WebView.
The implementation is pretty straight forward, but there are some limitations of running tldraw
inside a WebView, like window.open
and window.prompt
not being available, as well as some issues with embeds. We are using useLocalSyncClient
to sync between different editor instances for cases when the same file is opened in multiple editors.
When users interact with tldraw we listen for changes and when changes happen we serialize the document contents and send them over to TldrawDocument
. This makes VS Code aware of the changes and allows users to use built in features like save
, save as
, undo
, redo
, and revert
.
Overview of the communication between VS Code, Extension, and the Editor
VS Code actives our extension when needed - when a user opens the first .tldr
file or when a user runs our registered command. Then, VS Code calls into TldrawEditorProvider
to open the custom editor, which in turn creates a TldrawDocument
instance. We read the file contents from disk and send them to the WebView, which then shows the Editor. When the user interacts with the editor we send the changes back to the Extension, which then updates the TldrawDocument
instance. Since the instance is always kept up to date we can correctly handle user actions like save
, save as
, undo
, redo
, and revert
.
References
- VS Code Marketplace Manager
- Web Extensions Guide
- Test Your Web Extension
- Web Extension Testing
- An example custom editor that does work as a Web Extension
- VS Code Extension API/Landing Page
- Getting Started
- Custom Editor API
- github.com/microsoft/vscode-extension-samples
- Extensions Guide -> Webviews
- Publishing Extensions