VS support

[ovatsus]

It would be great to have a Visual Studio extension with this so you could you Ctrl+K Ctrl+D in F# source files like you can in C# source files

[dungpa]

Hi Gustavo,

Despite my zero knowledge on VS extension, this is on the TODO list.

There are a few reasons that it hasn't been implemented yet:

• This tool means to be an offline one. I use the F# parser instead of the F# lexer, so some information is distorted.
• It only can support formatting the whole source file, formatting a block is impossible due to whitespace significance.
• The set of preferences is still primitive. I would love to hear your suggestions to improve them (see https://github.com/dungpa/fantomas/blob/master/Usage.md#preferences).

That said, there are some problems with the core that will occupy my time. I hope that someone in F# community steps up to help with this issue.

[greenbutton]

Hi,

I've started a project for this at https://github.com/itowlson/fsharp-vs-commands. It's very rudimentary at the moment, no support for preferences, but I'll try to get that fixed over the next few days (and will probably try to move some of the code over into F# -- it's C# at the moment because that makes it slightly easier to get the VS integration going). Please feel free to take it into Fantomas if you want -- I started a separate project so that I could add other non-formatting commands to it if I wanted to. Also please let me know if you want me to provide additional attribution or include a copy of your licence.

[dungpa]

@greenbutton This is sweet. Thank you for starting it. Let me know when the project is ready for testing; I'm eager to try.

I did some investigation, my assessment also shows that starting C# is the reasonable choice. Later we could gradually move the add-in towards F#.

Personally, I would like to separate formatting commands from other commands and add the add-in to this repository. It's easier to update and deploy the add-in.

[dungpa]

@greenbutton @itowlson What is the status of the VS add-in :-)?

[itowlson]

Planning to look at it this weekend. I'm happy for you to take the code into the Fantomas repo. What are your priorities for me to address before you do that -- build script, bug fixes, etc.?

[dungpa]

@itowlson Thanks. My priorities would be:

• Allowing changing preferences
• Detecting fsi files correctly
• Preliminary support for formatting selection
• Adding build script
• Bug fixes

[itowlson]

@dungpa Preferences and FSI detection are now in. I need to have a think about 'format selection' but your and Vasily's suggestions sound like a promising compromise between making it functional and keeping it simple!

[dungpa]

@itowlson Great. When the addin is feature complete, could you please create a pull request and put the project into vs or addin, etc under the root folder. It definitely is the most awaited pull request :-).

[dungpa]

@greenbutton @itowlson Did you receive my message at itowlson/fsharp-vs-commands#2 (comment) about status of the VS add-in?

[itowlson]

@dungpa Many apologies. I've been away this weekend and wasn't checking email. I'll respond over there.

[dungpa]

@itowlson No problem. I'm waiting for your answer there.

[dungpa]

@greenbutton @itowlson Have you seen my message at itowlson/fsharp-vs-commands#2 (comment) :-)?

[itowlson]

Sorry, been travelling (again). I am happy to transfer whenever is convenient for you (and agree it would be best as I'm struggling to be responsive!). How do you want to do this? Do I need to fork the main Fantomas project and add my code to the fork, then you merge back in? Or would it be easier for you to just take the files and add them to your repo?

[dungpa]

@itowlson It would be great if you can create a pull request and put the VS extension under vs folder in the root directory. That's even better if you can preserve commit history while transferring the code.

Let me know how I should attribute your work. I will add a few more sentences on README, but I'm not sure it's enough.

[ovatsus]

Could you upload the addin to the Visual Studio gallery, so it's searchable and installable from the VS extension manager?

[dungpa]

@ovatsus @vasily-kirichenko The extension is now live at http://visualstudiogallery.msdn.microsoft.com/24ef5c87-b4e3-4c3b-b126-1064cc66e148

I would love to hear your initial feedbacks. If there is no serious issue, I will write up a short blog post and announce the release tomorrow. Thanks.

[ovatsus]

Thanks, I gave it a try and it seems to work fine. I didn't like some of the adjustments, but I'll report them separately

[ghost]

The plugin itself is installing fine and works well.

However, you’ve now made it so easy to use that you’re going to get an absolute flood of issue reports. We noticed this with the F# type checker – as soon as we added type checking to Visual Studio, we found bugs at a much greater rate.

You’re doing an amazing job – so don’t take the feedback the wrong way. It’s the joy of having users 

Cheers!
Don

[ovatsus]

Yes, this tool is awesome, in addition to being very useful, it's going to make a noticeable difference when demoing F# to C# devs. From my experience, when they complain about tooling, after not having rename and folders, the auto formatting is the third thing mentioned.

[dungpa]

@dsyme @ovatsus Thanks for your compliments. I'm glad that the tool is useful. Just feel overwhelmed about the amount of work to be done.

[halcwb]

Is this still supported for VS? Couldn't find it?

[dsyme]

Repo now at https://github.com/fsprojects/fantomas-for-vs