Starting vitale server fails on vscode windows

[bmerkle]

Hi again

i ran vitale sucessfully on github codespaces 👍
vitale is really cool and i like it 💯

i tried it also on my vscode windows installation but it fails to start the vitale server.
I followed the instructions in https://github.com/githubnext/vitale?tab=readme-ov-file#installation
but i get a error message (please see screenshot attached)

How can i fix this ?
Maybe this is a plattform dependend issue (e.g. / vs \ in the path) ?

In the console output the message is:

rejected promise not handled within 1 second: Error: spawn node_modules/.bin/vitale ENOENT
stack trace: Error: spawn node_modules/.bin/vitale ENOENT
    at Process.ChildProcess._handle.onexit (node:internal/child_process:286:19)
    at onErrorNT (node:internal/child_process:484:16)
    at processTicksAndRejections (node:internal/process/task_queues:82:21)

[bmerkle]

I tried to start manually but vscode seems to ignore the running server

PS C:\work\githubnext\vitale\node_modules.bin> .\vitale.ps1
(!) Could not auto-determine entry point from rollupOptions or html files and there are no explicit optimizeDeps.include patterns. Skipping dependency pre-bundling.

and launch.json does not contain the path to vitale.ps1 which is strange
launch.json

[jaked]

thank you for the report!

I haven't tested this on Windows at all so it is probably a path issue (see https://github.com/githubnext/vitale/blob/main/packages/vscode/src/controller.ts#L105). Unfortunately I'm not able to work on this (I don't have a Windows setup) but I would be grateful for a patch if you would like to submit one.

There's not currently a way for the VS Code extension to connect to a server started externally (this would be a nice option to add); it always tries to start one and connect to it. launch.json doesn't contain the server path because the extension looks for it in node_modules.

[bmerkle]

ok thanks for the info. I will try to fix it and submit a PR

[goodchengwang]

i have same error

[bmerkle]

Hi @jaked, here is a small patch which handles the OS dependencies.
Unfortunately i could not test it because debugging/starting does not yet work in my setup/environment.

therefor i have three questions:

• I understand, that i can debug a VSCode plugin via F5. (two instances of VSCode are started, one host and one for the plugin). It this the right way to debug ? (https://vscode-docs.readthedocs.io/en/stable/extensions/debugging-extensions)

• I would assume that the server is started dynamically in the debugger, but according to your description in
  https://github.com/githubnext/vitale?tab=readme-ov-file#development
  it seems that I have to explicitly start the server (run Vitale: Restart Kernel from the command palette)... I am confused

• in the doc you also say that we have to link the server to the example
  cd packages/server; pnpm link --dir $YOURPROJECT
  do i have to use / or \ in the path and absolute or relative path ?
  i mean in our example we link it to the examples directory and not the example file, right

If we add a bit more info here, I am sure i get a running setup to debug and develop more PR for vitale :-)

[jaked]

hi @bmerkle sorry I didn't reply sooner (I'm no longer at GitHub 😢 but I'm still a contributor to Vitale).

1. yes, that's how I normally develop Vitale
2. the server is started by the Vitale extension, you don't need to start it explicitly (but if you make server changes, you need to manually restart with the Restart Kernel command)
3. for the examples project you don't need to link, it's already done