VS Code VISX install instructions and how to pre-test features or releases

[artmg]

Hi, glad to see new code popping up in main, but I also get that this is a busy project with a lot of dev work bubbling under the surface. I was looking to find ways that non-devs could maybe help out in testing new releases, features and bugfixes before they make it to formal publication, in case that could support development effort.

1) the link in https://github.com/quarto-dev/quarto/tree/main/apps/vscode#installation to [install] directly from a [VISX extension file (#visx-install) is dead

2) are there any suggested ways that power users can bring a specific branch to their local VS code install to test the newer or fixed functionality before it has gone through your full formal release cycle?

Happy to know if there are indirect ways like this to contibute. Thanks

[mcanouil]

Did you look at the README?

[artmg]

Many thanks @mcanouil – I did not realise that the section called 'development' actually tells people how to test, although being such a short explanation, that might not be clear to non-devs.

I have extended to make the more comprehensive documentation below which I can add as a PR, but should I put it into ?

1. the root README, or maybe into
2. the apps/vscode/README and link from the root,
3. or should I put it somewhere else?

Testing development builds

If you would like to support development effort, by helping out with testing new releases, features and bugfixes before they make it to formal publication, then you can use the following instructions. These were created for zsh on macOS, but if you substitute brew with choco install nvm or runtime or nvm-sh then you can easily get them working on Windows or Linux too.

brew install nvm
nvm install --lts
node -v

cd myRepos
git clone git@github.com:quarto-dev/quarto.git
cd quarto
# if you want a specific branch then
# git checkout branchname

# https://yarnpkg.com/getting-started/install
corepack enable
yarn

This should install yarn classic, e.g. v1.22.22. Do not worry if it give errors such as:

• warning quarto@1.114.0: The engine "vscode" appears to be invalid.
• warning vscode-languageclient@8.1.0: The engine "vscode" appears to be invalid.
• or around 100 lines of unmet peer dependency, mainly from workspace-aggregator ...you should continue anyhow.

# do we need to uninstall the production extension?
# code --uninstall-extension quarto.quarto

code .
# in the VS code window that opens the folder click to Trust authors

yarn dev-vscode

carried out the build and ended with two messages:

• quarto-vscode-editor:dev: built in 15435ms.
• quarto-vscode-editor:dev: [vite-plugin-static-copy] Copied 2 items.

Then in VS Code window:

• click the Run and Debug button in the Activity Bar (on the left)
• click the green Play button next to 'Run VS Code Extension' in the top of the 'Run and debug' pane
• wait for a new Code window to open with Extension Development Host in the title
• Open a project in this new window containing Quarto files.

Question to devs

Please advise which README I should PR these docs into