Self-hosting does not work on Windows in Electron mode

[westbury]

Description

Plugin self-hosting does not work in the Electron version on Windows. #6316 fixes it on Windows for the browser version but does not address the separate issue on Electron.

Reproduction Steps

Clone https://github.com/tom-shan/theia-plugin-hello-world.
Build (yarn) theia-plugin-hello-world.
Open Theia on theia-plugin-hello-world.
Hosted Plugin: Start Instance.
Nothing happens.

This problem occurs only when both Windows and Electron.

Diagnostics:

This problem was originally discovered by @kittaakos

#6316 (comment)

[sboudreaux96]

Hello all - I am still having this same problem and am looking for a fix. anyone have any recommendations?

[vince-fugnitto]

Hello all - I am still having this same problem and am looking for a fix. anyone have any recommendations?

@sboudreaux96 I do not believe there is a fix yet for theia-plugins on electron.
Alternatively you can write a vscode extension and consume it in your theia-based electron application

[Tom-Yucw]

Hi, all, is this problem solved? I still failed to start self-hosting plugin on windows10 by

1. using yo @theia/plugin to make a Hello World plug-in
2. adding "@types/node": "12.20.0" in package.json to avoid error "node_modules@types\node\assert.d.ts"
3. run yarn to build plugin
4. run "Hosted Plug-in: Start Instence" in command, and select the source dir which includes file package.json

Nothing happens except

1. a "Host Plugin: Starting" status showed in the left-bottom
2. showed "Starting hosted instance server..." notification

[Tom-Yucw]

Finally, I debugged the problem, and by referring to [https://github.com/nodejs/node/issues/3675], added an option in function runHostedPluginTheiaInstance in file packages\plugin-dev\src\node\hosted-plugins-manager.ts to fix this.
This problem did not happen on Ubuntu 18.04, so I used a judgement of OS.
Code is showed as follows.

 import * as os from 'os';
 ......
  protected runHostedPluginTheiaInstance(command: string[], options: cp.SpawnOptions): Promise<URI> {
       this.isPluginRunning = true;
       return new Promise((resolve, reject) => {
           let started = false;
           const outputListener = (data: string | Buffer) => {
               const line = data.toString();
               const match = THEIA_INSTANCE_REGEX.exec(line);
               if (match) {
                   this.hostedInstanceProcess.stdout!.removeListener('data', outputListener);
                   started = true;
                   resolve(new URI(match[1]));
               }
           };

           try {
               const os_type_str = os.type().toLowerCase();
               if (os_type_str.indexOf('windows') >= 0) {
                   options['shell'] = true;
               }
           } catch (error) {
               console.log(error);
           }

           this.hostedInstanceProcess = cp.spawn(command.shift()!, command, options);
           this.hostedInstanceProcess.on('error', () => { this.isPluginRunning = false; });
           this.hostedInstanceProcess.on('exit', () => { this.isPluginRunning = false; });
           this.hostedInstanceProcess.stdout!.addListener('data', outputListener);
           ......

[msujew]

@Tom-Yucw Thank you for looking into it 👍

You can simplify the try-catch block into this, removing the need for the os import:

if (isWindows) { // Imported from "@theia/core"
   options.shell = true;
}

Are you interested in providing a pull request for this? This is probably the fastest way someone will look into this :)

[Tom-Yucw]

@Tom-Yucw Thank you for looking into it 👍

You can simplify the try-catch block into, removing the need for the os import:

if (isWindows) { // Imported from "@theia/core"
   options.shell = true;
}

Are you interested in providing a pull request for this? This is probably the fastest way someone will look into this :)

OK, thanks for your advice. I tried your method, it works well.
I will make a pull request later. This is my first time to do this, so excited!

[msujew]

@Tom-Yucw Great, please don't forget to sign the eclipse contributor agreement (eca) with the same email as your contribution (your commit email). Doing this after creating the pull request might lead to some complications in the review process :)

[Tom-Yucw]

Hi, msujew, I have signed the eca, but failed to set reviewer. A review required after I made a pull request. Would you please help me to do a review?

[msujew]

@Tom-Yucw That's alright, contributors who aren't members of the Theia team can't request reviewers themselves. The team will take a look when time allows.

[Tom-Yucw]

@Tom-Yucw That's alright, contributors who aren't members of the Theia team can't request reviewers themselves. The team will take a look when time allows.

OK
Thank you very much!