ocamllabs
Improve discoverability of the extension
Problem: There are quite many OCaml extensions, some of which have more downloads than OCaml Platform and are higher in the search (see screenshot below). Users are not sure which extension to install, especially because @hackwaly's extension is installed 10x more and has official OCaml logo.
2 things we can do about this:
- Get recommended by vscode: If a user opens a golang file, they are recommended to install golang extension (see screenshot below). If vscode allows such recommendations for language extensions developed outside microsoft, it would be nice to have this.
-
Try contacting (again?) other extensions' authors to add a pointer to the official OCaml vscode extension or deprecate as in case for Darrin Morrison's
OCaml and Reason IDE, which is a great extension but is not maintained afaik.
Try contacting (again?) other extensions' authors to add a pointer to the official OCaml vscode extension or deprecate as in case for Darrin Morrison's OCaml and Reason IDE, which is a great extension but is not maintained afaik.
I would like to accept your deprecation PR like this. And you could change the logo if you want.
Just published new version to make new deprecation to take effect to vscode marketplace.
That's awesome 🎉
Here's a screenshot of the extension explorer now:
I'll try to get in touch with the maintainers of "OCaml Formatter" and "OCaml and Reason IDE" as well.
As for OCaml Debugger, we've been discussing about it and it would be interesting to explore an integration of earlybird in vscode-ocaml-platform Not sure what your plans are for it @hackwaly, but if it sounds like something you'd be onboard with, feel free to reach out ([email protected]) 🙂
Right now earlybird is at alpha stage. But it goes on the right road. I hope someday it can be integrated into vscode-ocaml-platform. @tmattio
Before that, earlybird need enter beta stage at least. Some issues have to be solved like these:
- Can't debug bytecode programs produced by ocaml compiler with version other than earlybird itself's.
- Some must have features, such as attach to running program.
- Some usability issues, such as accurate stepping. Maybe limited by ocamlrun.
- ...
@hackwaly Totally understandable, there's no rush for it. When you feel it's stable enough for an integration, we'll be happy to explore that with you 🙂
Hi! I am the author of maelvalais.dune. Would it
make sense to remove it now that the extension ocamllabs.ocaml-platform supports dune syntax hightlighting?
Update: it is now deprecated!
Hi! I am the author of maelvalais.dune. Would it make sense to remove it now that the extension
ocamllabs.ocaml-platformsupportsdunesyntax hightlighting?
I think vscode-ocaml-platform supports everything your extension did, so it should be safe to deprecate or remove it. If you deprecate it, you could add a line that points users to this extension.
As I said in Slack, the Marketplace team will feature the extension on the official website in the second week of January of next year. It will help the extension to gain some views and downloads, and it will surface higher in the search results.
Sorry for the late response to this.
I have been planning to remove my old extension from the index listing. I will try to get to that soon.
Now, the OCaml extension is featured on the homepage! https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/vscode
Now, the OCaml extension is featured on the homepage! https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/vscode
That's great, good job everyone!
For what it's worth, I think extensions like the one by @hackwaly still have value. It seems that the official extension adds a lot of features that might not be desired for some use cases. For example, in an educational setting, an instructor might want to lock down suggestion features and just have the syntax highlighting.
