Better error handling/messaging

[ijsnow]

There are many situations where something goes wrong and we only log errors. This is largely because we haven't put the time in to coming up with a great way to communicate the errors to users. User's are now losing time by trying to figure out if they are doing something wrong. It's to the point where it would definitely be worth while to invest some time into this.

Some examples:

sourcegraph/browser-extensions#143
https://github.com/sourcegraph/browser-extensions/issues/136
https://github.com/sourcegraph/browser-extensions/issues/108

One option we've thought of would be to display the error in the tooltip but this would ultimately obstruct the view and be a worse experience than not having the browser extension installed at all.

[nicksnyder]

Once we settle on a design, this would be a good issue that anyone can do.

[ijsnow]

I believe a good place to start would be to put the error message in the CodeIntelStatusIndicator as we already do for some error messages but also open it when errors occur. Currently, I rarely notice the status indicator even when it's red (indicating a problem).

Let me know if you think that's fine @francisschmaltz

[francisschmaltz]

@ijsnow that's fine. Communicating effectively and clearly, with a not-great design is better than not communicating at all.

[sqs]

@ijsnow The CodeIntelStatusIndicator will probably go away or change significantly to accommodate extensions. (We don't want to have 1 place where code intel errors are shown, and another place where extension errors are shown.) The most likely thing is that each language would be responsible for adding its OWN error notifications or degradation notices, which would take a bit more work overall but would make the experience way better. This is how VS Code works.

In the meantime, if you need a quick place to put an error, put it in CodeIntelStatusIndicator. But don't worry about coming up with the "general way" to display errors better here, or at least come chat with @francisschmaltz before you do so he can loop you into the effort.