Provide Autostart Evidence dev server setting and implement autostart and install dependencies prompt on vscode load for smoother user onboarding

[RandomFractals]

in addition to new activation events and other checks added in #42 and #43 to:

• Start the Evidence dev server when evidence.autoStart configuration setting is set to true.
• Set it to true by default to autostart Evidence dev server when evidence files are detected on vscode load and extension activation
• When evidence.autoStart is set to true in the user or workspace configuration settings, and we don't detect the require node_modules folder to run dev server, display info prompt and ask if the user wants to install Evidence dependencies.
• Display loading progress bar when server is starting on vscode window load

[RandomFractals]

New Autostart settings:

[RandomFractals]

Install dependencies prompt when opening new Evidence project from template and it doesn't have node_modules:

[RandomFractals]

App auto start: (still takes 25 seconds for the page to load 🤷‍♂️ )

[RandomFractals]

Autostart should now default to true and start Evidence dev server automatically when our project files are detected on vscode load and ext. activation:

[archiewood]

Feature is great

This does not seem to boot the simple browser successfully

[RandomFractals]

I see the built-in Simpler Browser view open, dependencies being installed and then app server started.

This must be running an older extension version producing those results as that flow is very different now after the changes in this ticket and #56.

[archiewood]

Tested at around ~2pm today

[RandomFractals]

yeah, that doesn't look right or match the latest code. see: #57 (comment)

Here is how it actually functions. List steps in text next time to help us reproduce your scenario.

[archiewood]

Can we adjust this prompt to just say:

Would you like to install Evidence?

Most of our new users do not really know what a dev server is, so ideally don't want to introduce this concept too early.

[archiewood]

Secondly I have an issue here:

Repro

1. Create a new project file
2. Command Palette > Create new project from template
3. Would you like to install dependencies? > Select Yes
4. Wait

Expected behaviour

Spinner in status bar turns into play button once install is complete

Actual behaviour

Spinner keeps spinning and I cannot start evidence yet

[RandomFractals]

Can we adjust this prompt to just say:

Would you like to install Evidence?

....
Most of our new users do not really know what a dev server is, so ideally don't want to introduce this concept too early.

I am opposed to changing this now. We are installing your app dependencies.

Please review and suggest such UI labeling changes when these feature tickets are in the initial creation/dev state. We have too many Install Dependencies labels, notifications messages, and related code to do this UI refactor in Sprint 2.

Feel free to open new UI enhancement request for the following sprints to review this.

Technically, I think it's the correct terminology to use and VS Code uses the same terminology too.

Also, they are not installing Evidence. We created Evidence app project for them and they need to install nodejs dependencies to run it.

[RandomFractals]

Secondly I have an issue here:

Repro

1. Create a new project file
2. Command Palette > Create new project from template
3. Would you like to install dependencies? > Select Yes
4. Wait

Expected behaviour

Spinner in status bar turns into play button once install is complete

Actual behaviour

Spinner keeps spinning and I cannot start evidence yet

...

Also a minor timer delay that we can't really fine tune as mentioned before in other review tickets because we only send a command to the terminal and can only guess or estimate the time it takes to install dependencies. I can't enable start dev server earlier, and eventually that state changes after a few seconds.

You can open a separate UX enhancement ticket for future sprints if you feel strongly about these few extra seconds timer delays we have no control over with the simple terminal API we've decided to use to save time and let us develop other features in 2 weeks.

Closing this as the core feature implementation is done and should be released in v1.1.0 this week.

[RandomFractals]

to find a good balance here I will reduce the delay timer for dependencies installation by 5 seconds.

However, just so you know, all the delay timers and spinner we added in Evidence status bar button for these npm commands are superficial, and will very on different platforms and machines.

They do all expire in a few extra seconds or so. In order to have perfect timings, we need to read running process status and should be switching to using nodejs child_process like we do for node version check already in src/node.ts in #15.

Otherwise, we can't fine-tune them any further. I suggest you open separate tickets for such cases to address them with the switch to how we run your app, i.e. terminal vs custom shell.