WFL EXTENSION

Description

WFL Extension is a Visual Studio Code extension. This extension has been created to make the reading and writing Workflow (wfl) scripts an overall more pleasant experience. It allows wfl to be selected as a language in Visual Studio Code and borrows javascript syntax to add the color to .wfl documents that one expects when writing code. The extension also comes equipt with a language server which adds intellisense (auto-completion), diagnostics, and hovering capabilities to .wfl documents. The language server is activated when a .wfl file has been saved.

Structure

.
├── client // Language Client
│   └── src
│       └── extension.ts // Language Client entry point
├── package.json // The extension manifest.
├── server // Language Server
|   └── src
|       └── server.ts // Language Server entry point
├── syntaxes // Language Syntaxes
    └── wfl.tmLanguage.json // Language Syntax Description

Set-Up

Step 1:

Move the wflextension folder into your .vscode extensions folder. This can likely be found in the following location: C:\Users\YOUR_USER\.vscode\extensions. Be sure to fill in YOUR_USER with your User. The file structure should look as so:

├── C:
    └── Users
        └── YOUR_USER
            └── .vscode
                └── extensions
                    └── *wflextension

Step 2:

WFL Extension uses dib -pd (-property-docs), a dib executable capability, which prints the dib property documentation for all components in json syntax. This extension comes with a file containing this output called dibPD.json, which is found in the following location:

├── wflextension
    └── server
        └── out
            └── *dibPD.json

If new properties are created, or property documentation is updated, then this json file will need to be replaced so that it is up-to-date. This can be done through the dib executable:

After building dib.exe, navigate the dib\out\win\bin directory and run the following:

dib -pd > C:\Users\YOUR_USER\.vscode\extensions\wflextension\server\out\dibPD.json

Be sure to fill in YOUR_USER with your User. If your .vscode\extensions folder is in a different location, use that location.

Step 3:

If you save a .wfl file, it can change into a Docker file. However, there is a fix for this.

Make sure to configure your VSCODE user settings for the wfl language:

• Do Command+Shift+P to open your command palette. In the box, search for 'Open Settings (JSON)' and click it to open the settings.json file.
• Make sure that this file has the following code:

"files.associations": {
        "*.wfl": "wfl"
    },

• Regarding the above step, if "wfl" says "dockerfile", change it to wfl.

Step 4:

To get started, open a new Visual Studio Code file and select the language as WorkFlow (wfl).

Save the document as a .wfl. Make sure that the language is Workflow on the bottom right of Visual Studio Code.

Features

This Language Server works for wfl (Workflow) files. It has the following language features:

Intellisense:

Auto-completion for categories (ie. VideoCompressors, AudioAnalyzers, etc.), fourCC's, properties, and defined variables. Extra details for each of these are included in the Read More arrow.

Hovering:

Hover your cursor over categories, fourCC's, properties, variables to see details.

Diagnostics:

Diagnostics are regenerated on each file change. Checks for unknown or missing categories, fourCC's, properties, and variables.

Running in Debug

• Run npm install in this folder. This installs all necessary npm modules in both the client and server folder
• Open VS Code on this folder.
• Press Ctrl+Shift+B to compile the client and server.
• Switch to the Debug viewlet.
• Select Launch Client from the drop down.
• Run the launch config.
• If you want to debug the server as well use the launch configuration Attach to Server
• In the [Extension Development Host] instance of VSCode, open a document in 'wfl' language mode (use wfl syntax extension for this).
• Type new to get a completion list of categories (and many more features!)