tools_metadata repo is out of date

[AlexV525]

Scope: https://github.com/flutter/tools_metadata

• The periodic action has been disabled for a while. I enabled it but we can allow the workflow to be triggered manually. Allow manually check up-to-date tools_metadata#37
• The run script cannot run because of linter issues and lack of platform support (especially on Windows). 💚 Fix the run script tools_metadata#38
• The repo is not well linked to related tools (e.g. flutter-intellij). 🎨 Use tools_metadata as a submodule in resources/flutter #6871
• Automatically roll resources and we only need to review & approve changes.
• Maybe get rid of the repo someday.

[jacob314]

I'm less concerned about making integration well linked with flutter-intellij unless it is also feasible to make it well linked with the Flutter vscode plugin.
It is also likely worth auditing whether all data from the tools_metadata is still needed. Much of it may already be obsolete (widget catalog) and other data may soon be obsolete (colors, icons).

[jacob314]

Fyi @DanTup rather than assigning.

[DanTup]

VS Code has only ever used color and icon previews from tools_metadata. The colors were removed earlier this year because they now come via the analysis server, so it's only using icon previews. The plan is to move icon previews to the server too, but that work was started but not completed.

Getting data directly from the SDK is better because it can't drift out of sync with the users versions (for example today if you use an older Flutter SDK you'll see the newest icon previews in the editor, but the older icons in your app).

I don't know what data IntelliJ (or possibly other editors) might be using from tools_metadata though.

[jacob314]

Fyi @jwren, @stevemessick.
How much does the Flutter IntelliJ plugin still rely on tools_metadata?

[stevemessick]

That is the source of the icon previews for Material and Cupertino.

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On Thu, Aug 24, 2023 at 2:51 PM Jacob Richman ***@***.***> wrote: Fyi @jwren <https://github.com/jwren>, @stevemessick <https://github.com/stevemessick>. How much does the Flutter IntelliJ plugin still rely on tools_metadata? — Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#7674>, or unsubscribe <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/ACA7VDNNIFJPCD3M42XLFQTXW7EEXANCNFSM6AAAAAA3SYJV5U> . You are receiving this because you were mentioned.Message ID: ***@***.***>

[AlexV525]

I'm less concerned about making integration well linked with flutter-intellij unless it is also feasible to make it well linked with the Flutter vscode plugin.

The metadata is still integrated with the IDEA plugin since it provides icon previews and color mappings. I'm not sure how the VSCode plugin integrates with it but TBH I didn't find any related docs about the overall integrations between these three tools. Maybe @DanTup will know better and we can push forward together to get rid of the repo someday.

[DanTup]

For Dart-Code, we only take a copy of the icons into https://github.com/Dart-Code/Icons which is a sub-module in the Dart-Code repository. If we can move the icon previews to the analysis server / Flutter daemon then we can remove that and have no dependency on this repo (and avoid the version skew).

[Hixie]

Who is the right owner for driving to some resolution on this issue? (The resolution might be that we plan to do nothing, but we should decide consciously in that case.)

[DanTup]

In the short-term, I'm happy to run the scripts to re-generate the resources on each stable (or the preceding beta?) release. I don't know how involved it would be to have a bot do it and just generate a PR though (I feel like it shouldn't be difficult, but it's not something I've tried - and updates can generate big diffs that sometimes need splitting up to not break the GitHub UI).

I think the end goal should be to eliminate the repository (and have all useful information come from the SDK/analysis server where it's guaranteed to be consistent with the SDK the user is using) and I think the main task there is to complete the work @stevemessick started to generate icon previews through the server/daemon. I'm not sure how involved that is (or who may have the knowledge to complete it - it sounds like there's some C in there and that's not something I have any experience with).