"markdown-it-wikilinks" dependency is not packed

[Lemmingh]

To Reproduce

1. Install version 0.0.20.

2. Restart VS Code, and open a Markdown document.

3. See Developer Tools > Console:

   Error: Cannot find module '@thomaskoppelaar/markdown-it-wikilinks'
   

Behind the scene

Unzip vscode-markdown-notes-0.0.20.vsix.

In out/MarkdownRenderingPlugin.js, at line 50:

return require('@thomaskoppelaar/markdown-it-wikilinks')({

But node_modules/@thomaskoppelaar/markdown-it-wikilinks/ does not exist, so this statement will crash.

The reason is as follows.

By default, vsce packs production dependencies, unless you exclude them.

However, markdown-it-wikilinks is not there:

$ npm ls --production --parseable

node_modules/github-slugger
node_modules/github-slugger/node_modules/emoji-regex

It is under dev dependencies currently:

vscode-markdown-notes/package.json

Line 219 in 431084c

"@thomaskoppelaar/markdown-it-wikilinks": "1.3.0",

Versions

• OS: Windows 10 Pro, Version 1909, Build 10.0.18363.1082, 64-bit
• VS Code Version: 1.50.0
• Extension Version: 0.0.20

Possible solution

Move @thomaskoppelaar/markdown-it-wikilinks to production dependencies:

npm install --save-prod @thomaskoppelaar/markdown-it-wikilinks

[Lemmingh]

Oh, I forgot a few things.

VS Code ignores broken extensions:
https://github.com/microsoft/vscode/blob/2b7760fa1fac6902b6114e79a0873dfd6ba7ad6c/extensions/markdown-language-features/src/markdownEngine.ts#L79-L85

So, you won't see that error message, until you tweak its logic, for example:

try {
    md = (await plugin)(md);
} catch (err) {
    console.error(err);
}

Besides, VS Code's built-in Markdown preview also reveals that your markdown-it plugin contribution is not working.

---

Additionally, vsce ls is a good command to know what will be in your VSIX package exactly.

[kortina]

Ahh, great catch. I will fix this weekend!

[kortina]

Thank you for such detail on this issue, @Lemmingh -- a model citizen!

I am just reading through the rest of your thread -- re: "built-in Markdown preview also reveals that your markdown-it plugin contribution is not working" is there something else beyond packaging the dependency that you noticed? I implemented your suggested fix in #104 and it seems to render OK now, but just wanted to make sure I didn't miss something.

[Lemmingh]

Looks good to me.

I guess there's no more to do with your extension.

---

wanted to make sure I didn't miss something.

Nothing critical in that comment. I was just talking about the background in different ways.

As you know, VS Code's markdown-language-features hosts its built-in Markdown preview. It renders Markdown to HTML by markdown-it, and defines a contract called extendMarkdownIt() so that extensions can contribute markdown-it plugins to enrich the preview.

Thus, to add a plugin (@thomaskoppelaar/markdown-it-wikilinks in your case), we need to ship it with the extension, and expose it through extendMarkdownIt().

To check whether it is packed, inspecting the VSIX package directly, or running vsce ls is the most precise way. However, that usually produces a very long list. So, given your project configuration, I chose npm ls --production --parseable.

Then to check whether it works, looking at the Markdown preview is often enough. But when something goes wrong, we will have to attach a debugger and look for errors.

That's all.