Visual Studio Code for ipad

allessandrojs commented 5 years ago

can use the Visual Studio Code on a ipad

waycowei commented 3 years ago

👀

lanseria commented 3 years ago

I hope to write a scheme to use iPad

0xd18b commented 3 years ago

What has to happen here? Can the community contribute?

With the latest iPad announcement this feels like a no-brainer.

If this comment is correct, it seems the only thing we need to do is create a remote only version of VS Code.

iPad Pro + VS Code + Codespaces would seriously make my year.

tjdraper commented 3 years ago

An iPad version of Visual Studio Code that just had the SSH extension so I could SSH into my main machine to do work (like I do now with my laptop) would be fantastic.

tbenst commented 3 years ago

Since VS code is based on electron, and electron does not support mobile devices, I don’t think this is possible until that is resolved. Fortunately, the developers seem to be willing to take pull requests: https://github.com/electron/electron/issues/9162#issuecomment-308661746

IFICL commented 3 years ago

An iPad version of Visual Studio Code that just had the SSH extension so I could SSH into my main machine to do work (like I do now with my laptop) would be fantastic.

That's exactly what I want!

AckerApple commented 3 years ago

@tjdraper @IFICL

Install CodeServer on your “main” machine. Install Servediter App on your iPad and use self hosted mode with url targeted at your “main” machine. That’s it

Is it because the iPad app is not directly named “Vs Code”? Is it because you have to install one app on iPad and one on Computer?

Come on y’all, it’s Friday and you are all good programmers so get to trying my 20+ comments above. Please stop making me feel so privileged and get ServEditer + CodeServer

(I’m not related to ServEditer nor CodeServer in anyway)

IFICL commented 3 years ago

@tjdraper @IFICL

Install CodeServer on your “main” machine. Install Servediter App on your iPad and use self hosted mode with url targeted at your “main” machine. That’s it

Is it because the iPad app is not directly named “Vs Code”? Is it because you have to install one app on iPad and one on Computer?

Come on y’all, it’s Friday and you are all good programmers so get to trying my 20+ comments above. Please stop making me feel so privileged and get ServEditer + CodeServer

(I’m not related to ServEditer nor CodeServer in anyway)

You're right. ServEditer + CodeServer is a great choice. But some people might do not have sudo permission to install code-server on the remote machine, like me. That's the issue here. If we are able to access with ssh only, that's will be even better.

AckerApple commented 3 years ago

@IFICL

You don’t have to run it as sudo, in fact that makes it worse. Here is my start script for Code-Server, just replace “ackerapple” with your username. Save as “CodeServer” or anything you like and then double click to run Code-Server as your user

#!/bin/zsh
sudo -u ackerapple code-server --host 0.0.0.0 --port 8080 --auth none
bash

That script is near priceless. It runs CodeServer using your computer’s hostname, it turns off https need, and does not use sudo

The sudo in the script with -u username is to run a desired user and NOT as root.

tbenst commented 3 years ago

@AckerApple it’s nice software but it’s not actually VSCode—a massive amount of extensions and functionality are missing. For example, there is no Remote - SSH, Settings Sync, Python language server, etc. Until Open VSX is integrated, the experience is more limited than even VS Codium since even many open source extensions aren’t available. This is all discussed in differences to VScode.

It is still a great resource and getting better all the time, but not a solution to this original issue.

AckerApple commented 3 years ago

@tbenst a very accurate answer. Thank you humbly

bkniffler commented 3 years ago

Propably another nice alternative is shaping up:

https://blog.stackblitz.com/posts/introducing-webcontainers/

Its a technology running on Chromes capabilities API and allows to run nodeJS with file system access (through browser security), a TCP stack to run a server within the browser and other exciting stuff (along with offline functionality and being pretty fast). Here is the closing words:

Much remains to be done, but we can now confidently say that a future free from local instances of node, npm, git, and VS Code is a tangible possibility, and even enable the world's software to run in places it couldn't before.

Imagine a future where you can run WebContainers at the edge on platforms like Cloudflare Workers, or entire development environments natively on an iPad. How about running your favorite VS Code extensions, or running non-web native languages like Python, Java, or R in the browser via WASI? There are many unknowns still to be uncovered and resolved, but we believe the future opportunities for this technology are enormous.

These things might seem a little crazy. And there are many unknown unknowns. But we think this new future deserves a shot. Because, who knows? It could end up being unexpectedly phenomenal.

aescolastico commented 3 years ago

@tjdraper @IFICL

Install CodeServer on your “main” machine. Install Servediter App on your iPad and use self hosted mode with url targeted at your “main” machine. That’s it

Is it because the iPad app is not directly named “Vs Code”? Is it because you have to install one app on iPad and one on Computer?

Come on y’all, it’s Friday and you are all good programmers so get to trying my 20+ comments above. Please stop making me feel so privileged and get ServEditer + CodeServer

(I’m not related to ServEditer nor CodeServer in anyway)

Code Server is a great project, and you could honestly just add the web app to your Home Screen as a PWA without using the Servediter app. Ive tried both and honestly I prefer the PWA config. That being said a native ipadOS implementation by Microsoft would be the ideal here.

akrz91 commented 3 years ago

I would appreciate native vs code app for iPad OS too 👍

marfier commented 3 years ago

@AckerApple it’s nice software but it’s not actually VSCode—a massive amount of extensions and functionality are missing. For example, there is no Remote - SSH, Settings Sync, Python language server, etc. Until Open VSX is integrated, the experience is more limited than even VS Codium since even many open source extensions aren’t available. This is all discussed in differences to VScode.

It is still a great resource and getting better all the time, but not a solution to this original issue.

You can open an issue on the code-server repo to add support for any extensions you would like.

tbenst commented 3 years ago

@GalacticLion7 did you read the link? Again, code-server is not VScode and there a license issues that prevent many extensions from being used, including those that I listed

Cryrivers commented 3 years ago

I think one more thing to point out here is, although I do love server-based solutions like code-server and GitHub Codespaces. I would still love to have Visual Studio Code running locally to fully utilize the power of M1 iPad Pros.

heineiuo commented 3 years ago

Is it possible to run code-server or vscode-server locally on iPad？

pranavr2003 commented 3 years ago

The best way's to use Gitpod if you have access to the web, or use code-server to develop without it, as mentioned before. Works like a charm.

baoyachi commented 3 years ago

The best way's to use Gitpod if you have access to the web, or use code-server to develop without it, as mentioned before. Works like a charm.

It's need focus private code security.

kolanski commented 2 years ago

Is it possible to run code-server or vscode-server locally on iPad？

Currently available only if you can compile code-server or gitpod for x86 arch Linux and run it in ish. I'm tried this, but for now, has not enough time for experiments.

jerrygreen commented 2 years ago

Is it possible to run code-server or vscode-server locally on iPad？

You might wanna do this, but honestly this is such a bad idea. iPad is designed to be a lightweight device, less battery, less computer power, etc., - than a normal computer, and more importantly it is without active cooling (without fans), which means it can easily be heated and throttled. You should think twice, and maybe consider buying some Raspberry Pi, where you can install all your server things, - which all can be accessible through local network (i.e. immediately, no latency).

I personally use MacBook Pro + Raspberry even, for engineering. Which means, Macbook is more like a UI layer for coding + browsing + taking notes, and Raspberry is my backend that is executing long-running tasks: linting, building, compiling, etc., connecting via SSH. This works perfectly in unison, - thanks to Remote - SSH VSCode extension. I also have iPad Pro, too, - but I use it only for creativity tasks: draw a quick diagram or quick UI sketch, etc. And all my devices stay cold, no throttle, pleasant to work with, during a long time (actually they never throttle). Unlike me, you can use iPad for coding instead, removing Macbook from this scheme, if you want, - I guess, it is a viable approach too (it’s just my preference, because Macbook has a good keyboard). But if you move everything to iPad, even long-running/compiling/linting, - you can quickly stuck into overheating/throttling problems, makes everything laggy, which will make your work a torment.

tbenst commented 2 years ago

iPad is designed to be a lightweight device, less battery, less computer power, etc., - than a normal computer, and more importantly it is without active cooling (without fans), which means it can easily be heated and throttled. You should think twice, and maybe consider buying some Raspberry Pi, where you can install all your server things, - which all can be accessible through local network (i.e. immediately, no latency).

This statement is ironic and funny because your description of the iPad and raspberry pi are reversed. The iPad is as powerful as a computer, much more powerful than my current Linux laptop, using one of the fastest processors on the market, literally the same as used in MacBooks. The raspberry pi isn’t even close to comparable, and is severely underpowered as a development machine.

aescolastico commented 2 years ago

Is it possible to run code-server or vscode-server locally on iPad？

You might wanna do this, but honestly this is such a bad idea. iPad is designed to be a lightweight device, less battery, less computer power, etc., - than a normal computer, and more importantly it is without active cooling (without fans), which means it can easily be heated and throttled. You should think twice, and maybe consider buying some Raspberry Pi, where you can install all your server things, - which all can be accessible through local network (i.e. immediately, no latency).

I personally use MacBook Pro + Raspberry even, for engineering. Which means, Macbook is more like a UI layer for coding + browsing + taking notes, and Raspberry is my backend that is executing long-running tasks: linting, building, compiling, etc., connecting via SSH. This works perfectly in unison, - thanks to Remote - SSH VSCode extension. I also have iPad Pro, too, - but I use it only for creativity tasks: draw a quick diagram or quick UI sketch, etc. And all my devices stay cold, no throttle, pleasant to work with, during a long time (actually they never throttle). Unlike me, you can use iPad for coding instead, removing Macbook from this scheme, if you want, - I guess, it is a viable approach too (it’s just my preference, because Macbook has a good keyboard). But if you move everything to iPad, even long-running/compiling/linting, - you can quickly stuck into overheating/throttling problems, makes everything laggy, which will make your work a torment.

This may have been true 5 or 10 years ago, but nowadays ipads are very powerful devices. The latest pro uses an M1 chip which is extremely power efficient and is quite capable. Not to mention that the code-server binary has a very small resource requirement. It can run in the most anemic of containers. So the above is not at all applicable. One could argue convenience/ease of use might be a reason not to attempt this. But slowing down or overheating your ipad is very likely not one of them.

jerrygreen commented 2 years ago

M1 chip makes no much sense when it’s throttled. And if you have enough background tasks, linting, compiling, and files more than 500 rows (which is inevitable in normal projects), especially if you have something to do with containers, etc., - you will, inevitably, end up into a lot of heat on your device. And even a little throttling might make it all completely unpleasant. And of course, it all might still work for a little while, without problems. But if it’s your work, not hobby, means you spent hours and hours tinkering with all this the whole day, rather than a couple hours in the evening, - again, you will, inevitably, run into heating problems, - when try to do all this on a single device. I’m just telling you my experience, it’s up to you whether to listen or not.

P.S. Of course I were talking about 64-bit OS on Raspberry-8gb, rather than 32-bit ones with 2 or 4 gb. This is a perfect fit for those background tasks I mentioned.

patmuk commented 2 years ago

Unfortunately I have to disagree with you as well.

I connected a RasPi 4 with 8gb (but passive cooling) via USB-C to my iPad Pro, running code-server on the RasPi. mit was kind-a ok, but there was a noticeable input delay (0.3 sec maybe). The Pi has an ARM processor as well, so I could not install a rust tool chain. But my experience is: The setup is to weak to run code-server.
I ran an optimized Linux VM on the iPad and ran code-server from there. Unfortunately this was even slower - 1 sec input delay or so. However, I could install rust. But even with this obvious load my iPad did not get very hot.

The M1 is probably reacting differently to heat - at least does not throttle much under heat. I don’t think the experience with x86 processors can be applied directly. One can get a good idea of that by reading about load test comparisons of the MacBookAir (which has no fans) and the pro: The perform very similar, with the Air getting only a bit slower when running a while under load (and getting hot).

Lastly I connected the iPad via Terminus (ssh tunnel) to a Google Cloud VM I ran code-server (and JetBrain’s projector) on - which gave a native-like experience (no input delay).

The iPad is faster this way compared to my 2016 MBP. (Switching to safari, back to code, etc).

But locally running VSCode would be still preferred - for flexibility of coding potentially everywhere (in a plane, a country without free roaming, …).

jerrygreen commented 2 years ago

But locally running VSCode would be still preferred - for flexibility of coding potentially everywhere (in a plane, a country without free roaming, …).

Yes, I would still agree, - it would be cool if it worked so, as some quick default setup. I would still, though, change this default setup into using some backend asap, whether it is Raspberry, or some personal EC2 instance for development, something like this. But in overall, I kinda agree with you though, - preferences is one thing, but possibility is much more important. Like in cases when you’re on a plane, etc etc., - still might be needed! Good thing.

I connected a RasPi 4 with 8gb (but passive cooling) via USB-C to my iPad Pro, running code-server on the RasPi. mit was kind-a ok, but there was a noticeable input delay (0.3 sec maybe)

Well, weird. That is, kinda, yet another reason I am still using macbook (other reason than keyboard), - this issue: VSCode doesn’t have a recommended way to run on iPad.

Lastly I connected the iPad via Terminus (ssh tunnel) to a Google Cloud VM I ran code-server (and JetBrain’s projector) on - which gave a native-like experience (no input delay).

Wait, so you say, some remote VM, through internet connection, makes you no input delay, while Raspberry, that is connected via USB-C, - makes you 0.3s delay? Something’s seriously messed up there, lol.

Btw I’m not using code-server, I use native desktop client on my MacBook, with Rasperry (8gb, 64-bit). So input is handled by Macbook itself, means no delay at all. But linting, formatting, building, compiling, all those things, - they’re being run on Raspberry. Also, I don’t use USB-C, they’re connected to each other through router, using my local WiFi network. So we have quite different setups.

The iPad is faster this way compared to my 2016 MBP

But even with this obvious load my iPad did not get very hot.

Again: faster is good, but if it’s faster just for 60 minutes, and then gets throttled and no more fast, - it negates everything.

aescolastico commented 2 years ago

respectfully, the m1 ipad does not thermal throttle easily. you seem to be making generalizations about past ipads and applying that to this device. the m1 chip is capable of performing at above 80 percent efficiency for prolonged workloads on a macbook air. a fanless device much like the ipad pro. people run several hour long renders on it which are quite comparable to many developers compilation workloads. if not greater. not to mention not everyone running vs code needs to run intensive processes. that one reason is not a widespread enough concern to say vscode doesnt belong on an ipad. again people are already running code servers on containers with fraction of the compute that the ipad has and they are doing so for their real work not just hobby stuff. github codespaces also runs on small container instances. and if you need serious power, you can always run vs codes remote ssh extension to hook into a more powerful machine.

LiLejia commented 2 years ago

I think this disscussion could be over with vscode.dev coming out. They are focusing on web/universal features instead of porting electron to iPad.

Offbeatmammal commented 2 years ago

I think this disscussion could be over with vscode.dev coming out. They are focusing on web/universal features instead of porting electron to iPad.

while vscode.dev is pretty awesome, it doesn't address the need for stand-alone, offline tools. With my Mac I can work/test somewhere with no connectivity, with the iPad I can, but it means using other (suboptimal) tools. A stand-alone, native, iPad off-line solution is very different from something that requires connectivity

Ehco1996 commented 2 years ago

i have subcribe this issue for quiet a time but i don't see any hope of porting a ios-version of electron i think what we really need on m1 ipad is mac os 😬

mattkerrison commented 2 years ago

i have subcribe this issue for quiet a time but i don't see any hope of porting a ios-version of electron i think what we really need on m1 ipad is mac os 😬

Same I keep coming back to check but no love. I'm really not impressed with any code editing apps on the appstore, would be so good to have vscode on the ipad.

LiLejia commented 2 years ago

I think this disscussion could be over with vscode.dev coming out. They are focusing on web/universal features instead of porting electron to iPad.

while vscode.dev is pretty awesome, it doesn't address the need for stand-alone, offline tools. With my Mac I can work/test somewhere with no connectivity, with the iPad I can, but it means using other (suboptimal) tools. A stand-alone, native, iPad off-line solution is very different from something that requires connectivity

There is no incentive for them to do it. Well the best solution for Github/Microsoft is now, client is free but you must pay for Codespaces. That's why Microsoft gave up the private repo fee.

julkhami commented 2 years ago

So you can’t make a decent IDE for iPad which could SSH into a virtual machine just because the underlying platform Electron doesn’t run well on iOS?

justaguywhocodes commented 2 years ago

https://github.dev

baoyachi commented 2 years ago

https://github.dev

Not support Rust

ickc commented 2 years ago

Can people be civilized and stop spamming this thread?

Can we agree that this issue alone is asking for VSCode for iPad, and not any other seaming related projects? We hear you loud and clear, there are solutions that mimics VSCode for iPad experience, write your blog post, peach it somewhere else, that is not related to this (VSCode for iPad.)

If you don't think you need VSCode for iPad, fine, don't come here. Unless you have the authority to close this issue, don't bother tell us why it is not needed. This thread is for those who need that.

We don't need noise here, period. Maintainers can feel free to close this if they don't want to support this ever. And we'd appreciate them telling us explicitly and so people aren't holding their hope if they don't intend to support this. But as long as this is opened, we'll hold our hope. And we don't need speculation here on GitHub issues.

Unless your next reply add new information genuinely related to this issue (again, VSCode for iPad), please don't spam us.

And remember this is a GitHub issue tracker, not any other forum. If you don't write code, don't know about managing GitHub repo, don't know what is the accepted unspoken rules of an issue tracker, then don't even try to spam any issue trackers with your opinion. Show yourself some respects.

To other people annoyed by the noise as well: you do not need to justify why a digressed suggestion would not work. Doing so would only encourage the spammers and being lead to more digressions. If it is off-topic (hints: something else for iPad), ignore them. Or Downvote them with emojis (which would not spam subscribers.)

yume-chan commented 2 years ago

The real problem is there are so many people flooding with the same information without reading the 200+ comments, so let me summarize this long thread here:

Response from Visual Studio Code team

Porting VS Code to the iPad is not on our roadmap. While it may technically be possible to bring over the core editor, you really have to take into account the extensions to have a viable development experience. And that's a big problem, many extensions simply can't run on the iPad because there is no underlying version on iOS (e.g. Node, C++, Rust, etc.).

Instead, running VS Code in the browser with Visual Studio Online provides you a full development experience on the iPad powered by an environment where you can use all of your extensions, have a terminal, etc.

You can use a hosted VSO environment, or you can bring your own. For a more native experience, providing PWA support is on the VSO roadmap.

https://github.com/microsoft/vscode/issues/70764#issuecomment-603442937 (Posted on Mar 25, 2020)

Note: many things has changed since this response. See below for detail.

Main road blockers

Visual Studio Code is built on Electron, and Electron doesn't (won't) support running on Android and iOS (iPadOS):

For mobile platform, nearly all of atom-shell's APIs don't apply, so I don't think we will ever support mobile platforms.

https://github.com/electron/electron/issues/562#issuecomment-51735074 (Posted on Aug 11, 2014)
Loading extensions (especially binary executables) violates App Store guidelines:

2.5.2 Apps should be self-contained in their bundles, and may not read or write data outside the designated container area, nor may they download, install, or execute code which introduces or changes features or functionality of the app, including other apps. Educational apps designed to teach, develop, or allow students to test executable code may, in limited circumstances, download code provided that such code is not used for other purposes. Such apps must make the source code provided by the app completely viewable and editable by the user.

https://developer.apple.com/app-store/review/guidelines/#2.5.2 (Last Updated: October 22, 2021)

Proposed workarounds for above problems

Re-write Visual Studio Code in another architecture, including Swift, React Native, etc.
- An early POC with React Native: https://github.com/bkniffler/vscode-native (source: https://github.com/microsoft/vscode/issues/70764#issuecomment-604448625)
- Microsoft Office (Word, Excel, PowerPoint) had been re-written to run on iOS, but they are commercial products and make huge amount of money for MS every year.
  - And it doesn't support Add-ins from Desktop version either.
Hope Apple won't notice it, or change the rule, or not release in App Store (release in another store, for example AltStore
- There are several (less than five) apps on App Store that support compiling/interpreting C++, Python or Ruby code offline.
- Apple's Swift Playgrounds app can compile and run Swift on iPad, limitations including no debugging/profiling, no third-party dependencies.

Run Visual Studio Code in a browser

This issue is about "Visual Studio Code for iPad", so "Visual Studio Code in a browser on iPad" should technically count as on-topic (and basically it's the only possible solution in short term). But it should be a full-featured environment (supports terminal, debugging, extensions), not a cut-down version (only supports basic text editing, syntax highlighting). So it requires another environment running all the things, and only runs the front-end part on iPad.

Solution	Provider	Cloud-host	Self-host	Note
Visual Studio Codespaces (a.k.a Visual Studio Online)	Microsoft	✔️	✔️	Discontinued in favor of GitHub Codespaces
GitHub Codespaces	Microsoft	✔️	#135856	In beta, not available for personal users
GitPod	GitPod	✔️	✔️
Code Server	cdr	❌	✔️

These solutions does work, and they work pretty well sometimes. If you have ever encountered any problem when using browser version of Visual Studio Code on iPad, you can report an issue, Visual Studio Code team provides support for this scenario (note: Visual Studio Code, as an open-source project, support is only provided on best-effort basis)

patmuk commented 2 years ago

Best comment ever! Many thanks for your great summary!

ickc commented 2 years ago

Possibly one small correction: Visual Studio Codespaces seems to not offer self hosting option anymore, unlike its previous incarnation (VSOnline). Eg see https://github.community/t/self-hosted-codespaces/131361

Also may be good to indicate some extensions are not available in non-MS, FOSS versions.

ickc commented 2 years ago

Another minor point about AppStore not allowing extension, probably under “ Proposed workarounds”, is to bundle the extension in the AppStore. See Eg how iSH bundle the packages so that it is self contained and allowed by Apple.

On a tangential note, getting some of things inside VSCode to work on the iPad seems to requires external tools from the shell. But this can be (painfully) included using the idea from ios_systems used in a-shell for example.

These are quite painful things and kind of defeat the purpose of using Electron. But if MS want to put their resources at it, probably they will succeed. (But I don’t see why they would given their business model. Although they didn’t close this though.)

To me I’d settle for AltStore if it is the direction they takes. But I don’t think AltStore solves all the problems. Eg in non-jailbroken device you still can’t have the shell, forking processes etc., so how it works behind the scene would still be quite different. Besides, distributing via AltStore has another challenge: this can only gives us an FOSS version of VSCode as we are effectively compiling ourselves (the MS VSCode differs from the FOSS VSCode which doesn’t contain everything to reproduce MS’ version, and has a different licensing agreement.)

tiivik commented 2 years ago

As a Blink user, this looks very, very interesting: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tPHjcsrKM9s

patmuk commented 2 years ago

As a Blink user, this looks very, very interesting: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tPHjcsrKM9s

Wow, this looks great! As I understand: It can run code locally (or does one need to connect to a server?), to work on local or remote files. Looks like it supports (all?) plug-ins as well! And 20 bugs one time for Blink! Is ok (and they offer a free community edition).

Would that work for local files in airplane mode?

flemzord commented 2 years ago

Good news, Blink 15 release VSCode in App :) https://blink.sh/

ickc commented 2 years ago

Thanks for mentioning Blink 15. I tried it a bit and this answer some of the questions above:

From the doc:

connects to VSCode web, Codespaces, GitPod, or your Code server

So the 1st 2 are official solutions, the latter 2 are FOSS solutions (that some official extensions cannot be used.)

The 2nd one (Codespaces) probably is not new in the sense that you can already use it from the browser?

The 1st one (VSCode web) is quite interesting. As far as I understand:

it is official such that "Setting Sync" works
the optional extension "blink-fs" that can be installed from the extensions store which does some useful tricks that is better than a vanilla VSCode Web
- offline (may be vanilla VSCode Web can already do this?)
- local file read/write (may be vanilla VSCode Web can already do this?)
- the best trick is that it can edit files on remote ssh. As blink (supporting mosh/ssh) can access your remote including its files, it can feeds those to the VSCode Web instances as if they are local files.

The last bit is most interesting, as it somewhat gives you a "Remote - SSH" extension capability without a Desktop VSCode. Note that it is still different from "Remote - SSH" instance because nothing is running on the remote. So unlike VSCode desktop where some extensions are running remotely, this is entirely run locally. So the limitation is that the capability in terms of extensions are still like "VSCode Web", not "Remote - SSH".

But all in all, to-date blink gives the best experience of VSCode for iPad. I hope it might gives some ideas to Microsoft about how to offer VSCode for iPad, especially with fully capable "Remote - SSH" like experience, which can only be done by them again because of limitations of extensions in FOSS variants.