Inbuilt synchronisation support

[pronoym99]

Check for existing issues

• Completed

Describe the feature

Almost all modern editors and IDEs support an associated file or a medium via which the entirety of the software can be replicated in another system. E.g. a settings.json file in case of VS Code and the availability of sync-settings package in case of Atom. It would be great if Zed can have a similar inbuilt feature.

Current problems concerning such features are as follows:

• VS code's settings.json has only editor-related settings, not package-based ones.
• Atom's sync-settings gives you direct access to the editor features as packages but it doesn't report problems related to packages' dependencies which are system based. E.g. when language-latex is synced from a Unix system to a Windows system, the synchronisation procedure doesn't inform the user that the path to a TeX distribution needs to be there for the package to work correctly. If you view the package settings at this point, you will realise the path to the Tex distribution is still a Unix - style path which is not even applicable in Windows. You need to remember this system dependency for this package and similar dependencies for other packages.
• Atom supported a crude way (the documentation for which is now gone) to move the editor between systems via a portable drive. However, the system didn't have the flexibility of the sync-settings package which used GitHub tokens. But, the sync-settings package on the other hand didn't have the flexibility of movement via such external drives. Overall, none of the synchronisation systems could be deemed universal.

An inbuilt synchronisation feature in Zed will allow free and quick movement of the entire editor across multiple systems, environments and workspaces. At the same time, all possible means and synchronisation depth would be very much desirable as a built-in feature in the editor.

[JosephTLyons]

Hey @pronoym99, thanks for the detailed writeup! We actually already have an issue open requesting a settings sync feature:

• Built-in settings/keymaps sync feature #5566

However, this issue touches on some additional things, so I think it makes sense to keep it open, alongside the original issue.

Lastly, I decided to open a discussion about this here:

• https://github.com/zed-industries/community/discussions/956

[pronoym99]

Thanks @JosephTLyons for the support. Yes...I did see #5566 before opening this issue, however, the additional details are the very reason I decided to go with it.