Suggestion: Perhaps LSP is relevant to Notepad++ ?

[PH0lder]

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Description of the Issue

LSP ( https://langserver.org/ ) is a general way for multiple different test/code editors to support many different development/programming languages.

This seems like it could be something that might be useful for Notepad++ to investigate and eventually include.

If Notepad++ supported LSP, and adding new LSP language servers, then as new languages get invented, and their teams create a LSP server for the new language, they could be "automagically" supported by Notepad++.

[ghost]

https://www.reddit.com/r/vim/comments/b3yzq4/a_lsp_client_maintainers_view_of_the_lsp_protocol/ https://old.reddit.com/r/vim/comments/b33lc1/a_guide_to_lsp_auto_completion_in_vim/

[silvioprog]

More references:

• NppLSP: experimental plugin for LSP support in Notepad++ - https://github.com/dail8859/NppLSP
• Mature LSP support for Emacs - https://github.com/emacs-lsp/lsp-mode

[pidgeon777]

Any chance LSP will be integrated into Notepad++ one day?

I think that even some external plugins like "Python Script" could maybe do the trick...

[sasumner]

Any chance LSP will be integrated into Notepad++ one day?

Well, this issue is "open" :-)

[ArkadiuszMichalski]

Next references: https://microsoft.github.io/language-server-protocol/ - official LSP standard https://microsoft.github.io/language-server-protocol/implementors/servers/ - list of servers https://microsoft.github.io/language-server-protocol/implementors/tools/ - list of clients https://www.toptal.com/javascript/language-server-protocol-tutorial - interesting tutorial https://www.zeusedit.com/lsp/lsp.html - Language Server Configuration Dialog for Zeus IDE (as example) https://community.notepad-plus-plus.org/topic/16859/microsoft-language-server-protocol-lsp-a-possible-revolution-for-notepad - some discussion

This will gives us a lot of possibilities when creating code and it would be good to have it in NPP, at least as a plugin. If someone is tempted to create a plugin, it will certainly gain a large audience.

Edit: discussed even in Scintilla: https://sourceforge.net/p/scintilla/feature-requests/1330/

[pidgeon777]

Still hoping one day LSP will be integrated into Notepad++. :)

[pidgeon777]

A developer has finally implemented an LSP client for Notepad++ through a plugin:

https://github.com/Ekopalypse/NppLspClient

I encourage everyone to give it a try and report back for any found issue 👍.

[ColourGrey]

@pidgeon777: That project suffers from a number of inconvenient issues:

• after a short burst of activity between Oct. 25 and Nov. 21, everything seems to have stopped;
• it is written in V (which is currently an obscure language - I wish it luck, but it still has a long way to go), and it therefore requires both the V compiler and a C compiler to be present.

While the second point is manageable, it together with the first suggest that this is yet another hobby project without any ambition of leaving a mark and becoming mainstream. This is in clear contradiction with NPP, which is a well established, well regarded, mature and serious project. My opinion is backed by the fact that the same author has begun and then abandoned a similar project, but in Python.

Notice that another another short-lived project with similar goals is NppLSP, by a different author.

This is a major problem with non-paid development: people begin projects enthusiastically, but get bored quickly (or encounter various difficulties that they had overlooked, being overoptimistic) and abandon them.

I believe that if we were to make a poll, adding the LSP client capability to NPP would be the most voted feature, turning NPP into almost an IDE - but one being able to run in less than a dozen megabytes! For the reasons described above, I don't think that we should expect much from good-willed but over-confident volunteers. Everyting seems to depend on how much time @donho would be willing to allocate to this.

[Ekopalypse]

Hello @ColourGrey I'm not sure what to answer other than, no, it hasn't stopped, not yet. Thank you for your valuable thoughts.

For entertainment a small demo of the plugin.

[Ekopalypse]

By the way ... there is another project started by @Kered13 that uses C++ and was started pretty much at the same time. Just in case there are some programmers who want to contribute to it.

[michal-kapala]

@donho May I ask what the current status of this feature request is? I'm probably one of many LSP-compliant plugin developers coming from editors like VS Code/Neovim/Atom etc. and would love to extend the support for Notepad++ without the need of rewriting the same functionality with a different plugin system.

Has this been reviewed or discussed internally in any way? It's been here for nearly 5 years now.

[Kered13]

I don't believe that @donho is working on this or plans to work on it. However there are two projects working on developing LSP plugins for NPP, one by @Ekopalypse and one by myself, both linked above. I can't speak for @Ekopalypse, but my project is still in off-and-on development when I have time for it. Any contributions would certainly be appreciated.

[Ekopalypse]

I second what @Kered13 shared.