Vscode: API Proposal for multiline quick input

[devanshj]

Problem

Currently there's no way to take a multiline input via showInputBox. We need one because we use showInputBox to take the commit message (which can be multiline) in git extension. (#40295, #39969)

Solution APIs

TLDR: allow passing a multiline property to the showInputBox options

• PROPOSED API: Allow passing a multiline property to the showInputBox options.

  • Problem: Users can have { multiline: true, password: true } which won't work because it's a textarea. More importantly in future there could be more options applicable to only multiline (eg an option mapping to textarea's row attribute) or to only singleline

    • PROPOSED Solution: It's okay just document it
    • Solution: It's okay just document it and throw an error if such case arises

    • Solution: make the type of options like { multiline?: false, password?: boolean } | { multiline?: true, password?: false }

      • Problem: Terrible typescript inference and error message ergonomics if the options are not literal
      • Problem: It's typescript-only solutiton

• API: Have another function called showMultilineInputBox that takes options only applicable to it (meaning doesn't take password property as option)

  • Problem: Feels a little overkill especially at the moment as we only one option (ie password) exclusive to singleline. It would have been okay if we had a bunch of options only exclusive to multiline eg maxHeight, autoGrow, initialRows, etc. or bunch of options exclusive to singleline

Solution Behaviors

TLDR: when multiline is set to true, showInputBox shows a multline quick input where the user hits shift+enter to insert a newline and works exactly like current quick input

• PROPOSED Behavior: Allow users to insert a newline with shift+enter instead of submitting
  
  
  
  • Prior art: In chrome developer console enter executes the code but shift+enter inserts a newline. As in, usually afaik in scenarios where enter is already taken, shift+enter mimics the "usual" enter behavior. I guess it's also popular convention.
  
  
• Behavior: Allow users to insert a newline with enter instead of submitting and have shift+enter submit it.
  
  
  
  • Problem: The behavior is not "additive" to singleline behavior as user would expect enter to submit it in multiline also as it does in singleline
  
  
• Behavior: Allow users to insert a newline with enter instead of submitting and have a button to submit it.
  
  
  
  • Problem: Kinda kills the whole point of "quick input" you'll have to press tab to focus to button and hit enter, foreign to quick action ui and not additive to singleline behavior

Implementation

For currently proposed api and behavior: #98042, demo

cc @jrieken @chrmarti @joaomoreno

[devanshj]

Hey @chrmarti, this proposal (and the ready implementation) fixes a pretty annoying bug in git extension that has 112 upvotes and is 3 years old, not to mention it's a small change which is no-brainer & is pretty straight-forward. So I guess the reward to investment ratio is high enough that it would be great if you can prioritize it a little thanks :)

[joaomoreno]

@devanshj Please have patience and don't ping us. As you can see there are 5k issues and 200 PRs open, on top of all the monthly releases. There's a lot to work on. We'll get to it in time.

[vscode-triage-bot]

This feature request is now a candidate for our backlog. The community has 60 days to upvote the issue. If it receives 20 upvotes we will move it to our backlog. If not, we will close it. To learn more about how we handle feature requests, please see our documentation.

Happy Coding!

[devanshj]

FWIW I wouldn't call it a "feature-request" (I'm not requesting a feature) it's more of a "bugfix" (I'm providing a bugfix that involves adding a feature) because it's part of the process of getting this PR (which literally is a bugfix) merged.

To answer the bot, #40295 (the issue that gets fixed by this proposal & PR) already has 114 upvotes and the api feature request has 25 upvotes.

Also how I would want (it's okay if that's not what y'all want) this to proceed is that this should be added to current or next month (anything other than backlog really) milestone because clearly it makes the cut to be in them, that is what I was trying to say in the initial ping.

[xenoterracide]

I was just going to open a ticket to simply make the git commit box multiline... how do I vote for this issue?

[devanshj]

I was just going to open a ticket to simply make the git commit box multiline... how do I vote for this issue?

The 👍 you did counts as a vote afaict so you're good! Also this already has enough votes in the issues I've linked the reason I opened this is to discuss the api and track the lifecycle of it according to the guildlines.
So actually you should also 👍 this which imo is the actual "feature-request".

[vscode-triage-bot]

This feature request has not yet received the 20 community upvotes it takes to make to our backlog. 10 days to go. To learn more about how we handle feature requests, please see our documentation.

Happy Coding

[vscode-triage-bot]

:slightly_smiling_face: This feature request received a sufficient number of community upvotes and we moved it to our backlog. To learn more about how we handle feature requests, please see our documentation.

Happy Coding!

[PELock]

Just started coding my extension for VSCode, it lacs basic UI input methods. No multiline inputs, no way to design a simple dialog box (we need to use Electron apps like the Color Palette is using and do IPC...). I'm surprised VScode extension API lacks so many basic features.