Open dubinsky opened 1 month ago
Hi @dubinsky, I'm with you there, DevPod should install these plugins automatically. Jetbrains is actively working on the details of their customization (#1, #2). For plugins it's going to be relatively straight-forward as you've already provided a command to do this, other customizations might be harder to implement from our side.
For the time being I'd attempt to install the plugins under the jetbrains.plugins
key but no more until they've figured out how they are going to support devcontainers and we have clarity on the other fields
@pascalbreuninger
For the time being I'd attempt to install the plugins under the jetbrains.plugins key but no more until they've figured out how they are going to support devcontainers and we have clarity on the other fields
Here, I am talking only about plugins, so this would be excellent if the ones listed under jetbrains.plugins
got installed automatically! It would be very nice to include in the list of plugins to be installed, in addition to the ones listed in devcontainer.json
, also the ones listed in the new option of the Idea IDE - "plugins"...
Thank you!!
Is your feature request related to a problem?
Yes: one of the advantages of using
devpod
anddevcontainers
is the ability to spin up pre-configured development environment for a repository; right now, while VSCode extensions needed can be described in thedevcontainer.json
file and installed automatically, JetBrains IDE plugins can not.Which solution do you suggest?
After installing a JetBrains IDE, automatically install plugins listed in pre-determined location in the
devcontainer.json
file, for example:Which alternative solutions exist?
None that I know; my current work-around is:
Create a workspace, but do not start the IDE:
Run the following script supplying the workspace name on the command line:
(see: https://www.jetbrains.com/help/idea/work-inside-remote-project.html#plugins)
The command works, but results in:
Start remote development in the workspace:
Additional context
Right now, after spinning up a workspace with code in - say - Scala with IntelliJ Idea, developer will either have to manually install the Scala plugin using the IDE's UI and restart the IDE or split the spin-up into three stages as in the work-around described above. Both approaches go against the spirit of
devpod
: start a fully configured development environment with one command (or one click); both require from the developer some additional actions and (even worse!) put on the developer some additional cognitive load needed to understand what those actions are.Instead, all the actions required to obtain a working development environment should be automated and the decision what those actions are should reside in the code repository itself (side-by-side with the information on what tools have to be installed in the development environment).
It is true that the choice of the IDE to use belongs to the developer spinning up the workspace, but what plugins must be installed into the IDE chosen by the developer for it to be able to work with the code belong in the code.
As far as I understand, extensions to install in VSCode can indeed be listed in the
devcontainer.json
file; the same capability should exist for IntelliJ Idea.Thank you!
P.S. There are some plugins that developer uses to customize the IDE (themes etc.); decision which plugins of this nature to install, regardless of the code repository underlying the workspace, does reside with the developer, and a facility to configure such plugins/extensions for automatic installation per IDE should be provided also (something like
devpod ide set-options intellij -oPLUGINS="..."
).