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ECCO Language Server Client end-user documentation

Introduction

Purpose

This Visual Studio Code plug-in provides support for ECCO Language Server Protocol implementation. The plug-in enables end-user to perform essential ECCO workflows from within the editor without the need to open ECCO GUI. Plug-in is tightly integrated with specific ECCO Language Server implementation to provide functionality that is outside of the original Language Server Protocol scope.

Dependencies

Plug-in targets recent versions of Visual Studio Code (tested with 1.73.0). ECCO system is bundled within the plug-in itself, therefore there is no requirement for having ECCO installed in the system (however, be aware that plug-in always uses bundled ECCO, and there is a potential for incompatibilities between system ECCO and bundled ECCO versions if both are used to access a repository). The plug-in requires JVM to be installed and available in PATH environment variable (tested with OpenJDK 19).

Limitations and other considerations

At the moment, ECCO adapters available in the plug-in are statically defined at compile time and cannot be changed or overriden without repackaging of the plugin. It shall be also noted that plug-in behaviour on specific files largely depends on respective ECCO adapter behaviour, therefore specific adapter issues can manifest themselves through the plug-in.

Interaction with other plug-ins implementing language-specific LSP clients had not been thoroughly tested at the moment, therefore conflicts might arise.

User Interface description

Activation

The plug-in is activated whenever .ecco/id file is detected in a workspace folder. Plug-in supports multi-folder workspace configurations, with requirement that all folders of the workspace are local directories. Activation is automatic once the plug-in is installed and relevant folder is added to the workspace. Please note that plug-in activation might take some time; issuing ECCO commands before the activation had finished will lead to UI errors (track ECCO-specific UI elements described in UI elements section below to see whether activation had finished).

UI elements

Plug-in both re-uses relevant standard Visual Studio Code capabilities and introduces ECCO-specific UI elements.

Built-in VSCode capabilities

Following built-in VSCode UI elements are used to represent ECCO information:

  • Outline view of VSCode displays ECCO features present in currently opened document. Clicking on the feature in Outline will cause the editor cursor to jump to the first occurence of the feature.

  • Hovering over a fragment of source code in the editor will display a tool-tip containing ECCO configuration of an association that contains hovered fragment.

  • Double-click on a document fragment will highlight other fragments that belong to the same ECCO association in the document.

  • ECCO associations are rendered in the editor via color palette elements (colourful rectangles). Depending on specific ECCO adapter type, these elements might get rendered either on the left side of the document (when the adapter is not able to provide more specific locations), or more precisely located in document text. The latter behaviour, however, can interfere with normal user editing workflow, so it can be disabled with plug-in configuration setting (see Configuration section below). In that case, color palette elements will be rendered on the left side of the document regardless of ECCO adapter capabilities.

    If no information regarding associations is available for for a fragment, respective color palette elements are not rendered as well. Element colors are computed based on association with no checks for collisions (as they are quite unlikely).

ECCO-specific UI elements

As default VSCode LSP capabilities do not provide enough flexibility to support ECCO workflows, following special UI elements are also supported:

  • ECCO Repository overview page that is available via ECCO button in the status bar (normally located at the bottom of the window). Overview page contains plain-text information about ECCO repository state (base directory, current configuration, commits and known features). If multiple ECCO repositories are present in the workspace, repository selection dialog will be displayed prior to rendering the page. Page is not interactive and does not track changes in the repository after it was rendered.

  • ECCO Association page, displaying ECCO associations of document fragments via changing fragment background color. Highlighted document is rendered in a separate tab on the right side of window. Association conditions that correspond to highlighting colors are listed in a table at the end of rendered document. This view is a counterpart for ECCO association elements described in Built-in VSCode capabilities, following the same colouring scheme, however, having slightly different purpose. Separate association page remains static after it was rendered, and it's general goal is providing more detailed view of document state at some point for deeper inspection. Association elements in the editor are dynamic -- responsive to edits but their positions might be calculated with less precision.

    Association page can be rendered for active editor via Render ECCO document associations command in VSCode command palette (in default configuration can be opened via Ctrl+Shift+P). Make sure that the editor is active (has focus) prior to rendering the page.

  • ECCO Feature page, displaying document fragments that contain specified features. The page is very similar to previously described association page, however it enables user to specify exact set of features to render. The page then highlights document fragments based on subset of selected features that appear in a fragment. Feature correspondce to colors is contained in a table at the bottom of the page. Similarly to association page, feature page is not interactive after it has been rendered.

    Feature page can be rendered for active editor via Render ECCO document features command in VSCode command palette. Make sure that the editor is active (has focus) prior to rendering the page.

  • ECCO Checkout is a command to perform specific ECCO configuration in the repository. The command is destructive -- it requires user to manually remove all current state of repository (anything besides .ecco directory) prior to executing checkout. After the checkout was requested, user is prompted with desired checkout configuration -- comma-sepeated list of ECCO feature revisions (the same format as in ECCO .config file). Closing the prompt (by pressing Esc) will abort checkout. Once the configuration is provided, checkout operation starts. A pop-up indicating checkout activity will appear in the right bottom corner. User shall not perform any actions while checkout is on-going, as it might interfere with ECCO checkout process. Once it's finished (or failed), another pop-up notification will appear.

    Command can be activated via ECCO Checkout command in VSCode command palette. If multiple ECCO repositories are present in the workspace, it'll prompt user to select repository to perform checkout on.

  • ECCO Commit is a command to commit current repository state into ECCO. The command will prompt user with commit message and ECCO configuration string (if empty configuration is provided, data from .config file will be used). Both prompts can be aborted by pressing Esc. Once commit message and configuration are provided, commit operation starts. A pop-up indicating commit activity will appear in the right bottom corner. User shall not perform any actions while commit is on-going, as it might interfere with ECCO commit process. Once it's finished (or failed), the window will be reloaded.

    Command can be activated via ECCO Commit command in VSCode command palette. If multiple ECCO repositories are present in the workspace, it'll prompt user to select repository to perform commit on.

Configuration

Configuration is performed via standard VSCode workspace configuration mechanism. At the moment, the plug-in supports a single configuration option:

  • ecco.ignoreColumnsForColoring -- boolean flag specifying whether built-in association coloring elements shall ignore specific locations provided by ECCO adapters and get rendered on the left side of the document instead.

Localization

At the moment, plug-in does not support localizations. All UI messages are provided in English.

Author

Visual Studio Code extension and Language Server Protocol support for ECCO were implemented by Jevgenijs Protopopovs as part of software engineering project at JKU Linz.

Relevant links: