Ability to include additional extensions in an extension that can be installed together

[sandy081]

Use Case

As an extension author, I would like to compose an extension that

• contribute a set of features to VS Code
• include extensions contributing additional features to VS Code
• Installing my extension also installs the included extensions
• User can selectively uninstall/install the included extensions
• Represent/Highlight extension's features first

Following extensions will benefit from this

• ms-vscode-remote.remote-ssh
• Equinusocio.vsc-material-theme
• ms-vscode-remote.remote-ssh-nightly

Extension Pack

Extension can achieve this currently by declaring the extensions to include using extensionPack property. But this highlights the included extensions as primary feature contributions than promoting the features contributed by the extension which is unwanted.

Proposal 1 - Use extensionPack property & Extension Packs category

Use extensionPack property and signal VS Code to render the extension as Extension Pack or not by using Extension Pack category. If categorized as Extension Pack then the packed extensions are shown prominently otherwise extension is shown as normal extension and packed extensions are shown in separate tab like Dependencies.

Proposal 2 - Extend extensionPack property to define rendering semantics

Introduce a new property showAsExtensionPack in extensionPack schema, that extensions can use to control rendering of the included extensions in the extension editor. If set to true then the included extensions are shown prominently otherwise extension is shown as normal extension and packed extensions are shown in separate tab like Dependencies. Eg:

"extensionPack": {
       "showAsExtensionPack": true,
       extensions: [
             "pub.a",
             "pub.b",
       ]
}

[sandy081]

@kieferrm @fiveisprime FYI

@mjbvz Sorry, please ignore - its a wrong ping to you.

[sandy081]

Python extension has similar requirement. Python extension provides general Python functionality (e.g. REPL and run file in terminal) while various Python language servers can be used.

The ask is to allow for a default language server to be installed along with the Python extension and it can be uninstalled and replaced by installing a different language server extension.

[sandy081]

If no objections, I would go with proposal 1 ie., to use the category to indicate if the extension is an extension pack.

[sandy081]

Implemented proposal 1 and extension pack that is not categorized as Extension Pack will be shown as below

[sandy081]

To verify:

• Open an extension that is not categorized as Extension Pack, eg: Remote -SSH extension, and make sure extensions included in extension pack are shown in separate tab.
• Open an extension that is categorized as Extension Pack, eg: Use Filter by Extension Pack category in Extensions view, and make sure extensions included in extension pack are shown in the main details page.