Activate extension if other extension is activated

[itavero]

I wrote an extension that depends on data generated from/provided by another extension (ms-vscode.cmake-tools).
Instead of duplicating the activation events from the package.json of ms-vscode.cmake-tools, is there a way to have my extension be activated automatically when ms-vscode.cmake-tools is activated?

I browsed through the documentation and the sources of vscode, but I wasn't able to find a solution for this.

[r3m0t]

If your extension is activated first you can use the extension api to activate the extension you depend on.

[itavero]

This is exactly not what I asked 😉

Ideally my only activation event would be that the other extension was activated.

[alefragnani]

Hi @itavero ,

There is not such event, as you can see here https://code.visualstudio.com/api/references/activation-events.

You can say your extension depends on another extension, using the extensionDependencies entry in package.json (more details here https://code.visualstudio.com/api/references/extension-manifest), but this entry is for installation purposes, not activation.

Right now, the only way is to check if the ms-vscode.cmake-tools is active prior to run your commands/handle activation, using the the Extensions API (https://code.visualstudio.com/api/references/vscode-api#extensions). Something like:

    let msext = vscode.extensions.getExtension("ms-vscode.cmake-tools");
    if (!msext.isActive) return;
    ...

Otherwise, I suggest you to open a feature request in VS Code repo, so the team could take a look and evaluate the scenario you describe.

Hope this helps

[bwateratmsft]

Both of these require code in the primary extension (the one that activates first), but these are two options I've used in the past--

1. The primary extension registers a dummy command and calls it on itself. The secondary extension has an activation event for that dummy command.
2. The secondary extension has some form of custom marker put into its contributes property in package.json. The primary extension activates any other extension containing these markers.

I would love to see an issue filed on VSCode that would add a proper activation-on-another-extension-activation, so that code is not needed in the primary extension.

[passeee]

Wouldn't this work with
"activationEvents": [ "onCommand:extension.sayHello" ]?