Visual Studio Code Extension currently available and future plans for SciTE?

[WildByDesign]

Another interesting and legitimate future possibility here would be to distribute/fork VSCodium (truly open-source VSCode) and bundle the AutoIt-related extensions plus the bundling of AutoIt3Wrapper, SciTE4AutoIt3 full, etc.

[genius257]

  On 2/5/2025 at 10:39 AM, Danp2 said:

FWIW, I have both of these extensions installed / enabled at the same time, and it's working ok for me.

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Look at your current selected language mode:
If it says "AutoIt" then it's Damien.autoit, if it says "AutoIt3" then it's my extension running.

I just tested it myself, and it does not seem like any functionality overlap between the extensions, because of this.

 

  On 2/5/2025 at 11:43 AM, Jos said:

How does that exactly work in VSCode as I assume(d) only one can be active

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  On 2/5/2025 at 12:22 PM, SOLVE-SMART said:

they can coexist without any problems

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Multiple extensions can be active at the same time, even for the same language. It requires that the same activation requirements are met, like the language mode. It can however introduce unexpected issues. Some functionality might be merged (like suggestions), but others depend on the order, the extensions are loaded and register features/events with the extension. Mostly it's best to stick with one, when it comes to things like IntelliSense, to avoid inconsistent user experience.

Edited February 5 by genius257

[Jos]

  On 2/5/2025 at 1:17 PM, WildByDesign said:

Another interesting and legitimate future possibility here would be to distribute/fork VSCodium (truly open-source VSCode) and bundle the AutoIt-related extensions plus the bundling of AutoIt3Wrapper, SciTE4AutoIt3 full, etc.

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Let's not make this topic more difficult than it is and stick for now to VSCode/SciTE. One can always decide to go down an alternative path later when VSCode is working.  

[SOLVE-SMART]

In the meantime, until @LoganCH gets in touch: Could you imagine @genius257, that some members of the community support your VSCode extension on GitHub, expand it, etc.? I know you're open to contributions, but you certainly have (as you described) very clear ideas about what the extension should look like.

Do you see this as an opportunity or more as a challenge?

I really want to support yours and Logan's great work as far as I can 😇 .

Best regards
Sven

[genius257]

  On 2/5/2025 at 7:41 PM, SOLVE-SMART said:

Could you imagine @genius257, that some members of the community support your VSCode extension on GitHub, expand it, etc.? I know you're open to contributions, but you certainly have (as you described) very clear ideas about what the extension should look like.

Do you see this as an opportunity or more as a challenge?

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That is tough for me to answer clearly. I am always 100% open for discussions, suggestions and feedback.
For contributions in regards to my code, i am torn. My code is mostly very unorganized, and currently no automatic linting or general contribution guidelines exists. This means that bigger code contributions will have a lot of unnecessary back and forth, because currently it's all on my local setup and in my head (more or less).
Of course I want to welcome anyone to contribute, but without the issues mentioned above is fixed, I'd advise would be contributors to start with an issue, describing the wanted fix/feature first, before implementing something that may end up being discarded (A waste of work would be bad for you and sad for me).

But via conversations, and an agreed direction, leading to pull request, i see no issue in getting more people involved

I do have big wants for the future of my extension, but am stuck in a lot of experimental and exploratory development, making a concrete vision problematic 😅

[argumentum]

it ain't that different for me

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..the keymapping is different but pretty much the same.

...so many questions.
1) When I install an extension (, and I installed both ), which one is the one responding/acting on the action ?, I press "Ctrl + F7", who did it ?
2) I mapped "Ctrl + Alt + T" for Tidy. What did I just mapped ?, why does it work ?
3) How do I set bookmarks ? ( F2 , Ctrl + F2  in SciTE )

Please answer in a way a single threaded brain would understand

Edited February 6 by argumentum

[SOLVE-SMART]

@argumentum

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Why do you often portray yourself as a low brainer even though you are clever? Of course it's funny but I want to say, at least this one time:
You achieved a lot which can be seen in the forum here 😇 . So thanks for several good stuff you put out here 🤝 .

It's not easy to answer you questions without having to explain intentions around VSCode, the extension ecosystem and so on (at least for me).

I hope you will get a better answers by other persons here, but my suggestion is to walk through https://code.visualstudio.com/api/get-started/your-first-extension , watch some tutorials/docs or even ask AI to summarize it (because it's mainly a non strict related AutoIt topic). Or maybe we open another Thread for "VSCode and VSCode extension fundamentals" 🤔 😀 ?

Best regards
Sven

Edited February 6 by SOLVE-SMART

[argumentum]

  On 2/6/2025 at 6:11 AM, SOLVE-SMART said:

..or even ask AI to summarize it..

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WOW. The world of VSCode !. I don't think AI can summarize it. ..and if it did, it would be a no-answer. Am now getting an idea, ( faint idea, ) of the issue with extensions.
Haven't look into extensions code yet, just extensions.
For the type of .., pain in the ass ?, that I am, ..I'd become a VSCode coder, just to use it in a way that I feel at home with having what can be had. But then I would not code my project because I would get lost in an extension or another of my fancy 

---

- 3) How do I set bookmarks ? ( F2 , Ctrl + F2  in SciTE )
.. add an extension, remap the key association and feel at home again.

---

I guess I'll wait for y'all to settle on something ( extensions wise ) because, I spoke with my psychologist ( just me advising me ) and ( I myself ) told me to stay away from new stuff too involved for my attention span.
And I agree with me. I have stuff I never finished because of this nature of mine. 🙄

So I'll watch from the sidelines the game development of the AutoIt extension adventure  

 

[ValentinM]

The power of VS Code is in extensions. You want bookmarks ? Install Bookmarks. Or maybe you would like a "session" system just like in SciTE ? Install Save and restore tabs.

You also can open .csv files, and color them with Rainbow CSV for a better reading experience, or even use Git(hub/lab) straight into it. Copilot can help too, and since it reads your open files, we have to admit that it works pretty well.

These are some extensions I am using, I hope it will be useful for someone.

Edited February 6 by ValentinM

[SOLVE-SMART]

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  On 2/6/2025 at 10:09 AM, argumentum said:

For the type of .., pain in the ass ?, that I am, ..I'd become a VSCode coder, just to use it in a way that I feel at home with having what can be had. But then I would not code my project because I would get lost in an extension or another of my fancy 

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🤣

 

  On 2/6/2025 at 10:09 AM, argumentum said:

I spoke with my psychologist ( just me advising me ) and ( I myself ) told me to stay away from new stuff too involved for my attention span.
And I agree with me.

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🤣 I'm glad to read that you agree with yourself. Evidence of a healthy mind 👌 .

 

 

[argumentum]

  On 2/6/2025 at 10:27 AM, SOLVE-SMART said:

🤣 I'm glad to read that you agree with yourself.

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...at times ( quite often ), I do disagree with the better angels of my nature and, pay the price 😭
But, 60 years later am slowly identifying the pattern and can say, that am starting to be more mindful of the advisor.
If I continue paying good attention, I figure I'll be wise at about the age of 120

[SOLVE-SMART]

Hi folks, hi @Jos 👋 ,

what do you think guys, how should we proceed here? I mean Jos opened this Thread 7 days ago (which is not old, I know), but should we wait for an statement of @LoganCH . As I said before, for me it would be interesting to get an assessment by him regarding the future of his VSCode extension, plans, ideas etc. Unfortunately, he is not easy to reach or may be on vacation, stressed or something else. I hope he's doing well 🍀 .

Any suggestions?

Best regards
Sven

[Jos]

I am not in any rush here as I have already published a new Beta for SciTE4AutoIt3 containing all stuff I mentioned here.
After a short period in which people can comment on that Beta, I will release it and then go into hiding for a month. 😅

The reason for starting a discussion here is to see whether there is anything I could do in the current packages used by the extensions in VSCode, and was curious about people's opinions what the "best" extension is to use.  

Couple of things I have been wondering since using VSCode & the Damien version for the AutoIt3 extension are:

• Is there a reason not having shortcuts for Tidy / Au3Stripper?
• $VARIABLES & @MACROs aren't shown with a different color. Any reason for that or did I miss something?
• Is there any logic in the extension to fix some of the auto indent quirks, or is everybody just livening with it? (I know all about them having messed with the LUA code for that and still not have it perfect)

Jos

Edited February 10 by Jos

[donnyh13]

I was wondering, if the transition does take place from Scite to VSCode, for those wishing to still use custom helper LUA scripts, in order to duplicate their function, would they need to be re-written in Java/typescript? And if so, are you then essentially creating your own extension? Or would you be using VSCode tasks? Or some other function of VSCode ?

[BinaryBrother]

IMHO

damien.autoit

Pros: Suggestions work, F5 launches the script and returns proper console, it has Tidy under the command pallet. VSCode is understanding and makes excellent suggestions.

Cons: I'm not sure how to compile or where the compilation options are for my script, though. If you click Debug, it acts like it's missing the extension. Random indent issues (which I've always used Tidy to fix, even in ScITE)

Edited February 10 by BinaryBrother

[Jos]

  On 2/10/2025 at 9:23 PM, BinaryBrother said:

I'm not sure how to compile or where the compilation options are for my script, though.

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F7 & Ctrl+F7 as in SciTE?
Options are defines by #AutoIt3Wrappper_* directives.

[BinaryBrother]

  On 2/10/2025 at 9:29 PM, Jos said:

F7 & Ctrl+F7 as in SciTE?
Options are defines by #AutoIt3Wrappper_* directives.

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Ahh, I see. I completely forgot about the Wrapper directives... Whoops.

[genius257]

  On 2/10/2025 at 5:39 PM, donnyh13 said:

I was wondering, if the transition does take place from Scite to VSCode, for those wishing to still use custom helper LUA scripts, in order to duplicate their function, would they need to be re-written in Java/typescript? And if so, are you then essentially creating your own extension? Or would you be using VSCode tasks? Or some other function of VSCode ?

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I'm not familiar with what kind of custom LUA scripts you're referring to, but i really depends on the task required.
The solutions could be one or a combination of: vscode features, existing extensions, external CLI tools or you own custom extension.

[donnyh13]

  On 2/10/2025 at 10:03 PM, genius257 said:

I'm not familiar with what kind of custom LUA scripts

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In general I mean the scripts one would put in the "PersonalTools.lua" script (found in C:\Users\Name\AppData\Local\AutoIt v3\SciTE), and assign a hotkey for in SciTEUser.properties, to call in Scite. Generally where you are able to tie into the editor, get the current selected word, etc.

Specifically, for one, I have a tool that scans a script for func declarations and lists each func name in a specific spot at the top, in the order found (For UDF header lists).

Thanks for the suggestions.

Edited March 13 by donnyh13

[argumentum]

Edit: @genius257

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made a copy: "SampleControls - Copy.au3" and added ">AutoIt: Trace: add..". It does add a line with "@@ (20) :(48:22) _Example()" but DClicking does nothing in VSCode.

..ok, that "Problems" tab is for the extension. It shows:

[{
    "resource": "/C:/Users/Admin/.vscode/extensions/genius257.autoit-1.7.0/.github/workflows/publish-extension.yml",
    "owner": "_generated_diagnostic_collection_name_#3",
    "severity": 4,
    "message": "Context access might be invalid: vsce_token",
    "startLineNumber": 20,
    "startColumn": 21,
    "endLineNumber": 20,
    "endColumn": 44
},{
    "resource": "/C:/Users/Admin/.vscode/extensions/genius257.autoit-1.7.0/.github/workflows/publish-extension.yml",
    "owner": "_generated_diagnostic_collection_name_#3",
    "severity": 4,
    "message": "Context access might be invalid: ovsx_token",
    "startLineNumber": 23,
    "startColumn": 21,
    "endLineNumber": 23,
    "endColumn": 44
}]

I should have posted elsewhere but I started here.