DynaSense (LS-DYNA Studio)

A Feature-Rich LS-DYNA Editor for VS Code

Built for CAE engineers: intelligent autocomplete, large file preview, and auto-alignment.

English Version | 中文说明

🚀 Quick Start (30 Seconds)

Awaken AI: Open any .k or .key file and type * to trigger 3100+ keyword autocompletions.
Align Columns: Press Tab on data lines to jump precisely between 10-character column widths.
Read Definitions: Hover over any keyword or field to see detailed explanations and default values.
Link Manuals: Click the ⚙️ gear icon on the hover card (or use the bottom Status Bar Dashboard) to link your local LS-DYNA PDF manuals for instant page jumping.

Preview:

💡 Awaken AI 📖 Read Definitions

🌟 Core Features

📖 LS-DYNA Manual Integration & Interactive Hover (Click to expand)

Interactive Hover Cards: Keyword and field hover tooltips provide direct links to the corresponding page in the LS-DYNA PDF manual.
Fast Search: Powered by a custom binary PDF bookmark engine for fast retrieval.
Field-level Tooltips: Hover cards explain the keyword and detail the type, length, and default values of each specific field.

Hover Hints

⚡ Autocomplete & Formatting (Click to expand)

Keyword Coverage: Data is extracted from the official ansys/pydyna database, supporting over 3100+ keywords.
Snippets: Offers formatted snippet templates for rapid keyword insertion.
Path Autocomplete: Type / to autocomplete included files in the same directory, filtering invalid paths.
Auto Comment Generation: Use $ or # to trigger automatic generation of field comments, right-aligned with no trailing spaces.
Tab Navigation: Press Tab to jump between fields distributed across 10-character widths, with auto line wrapping.
Formatting: Format data into the 10-column / 8-column layout. Optional cursor-leave formatting is available through the experimental lsdyna.autoFormat setting and is disabled by default.

Feature Demos:

🔑 Keyword Completion 🛤️ Path Completion

📝 Quick Comment 📐 Tab Jumping

✨ Formatting

📂 Include Management & Fast Preview (Click to expand)

Status Highlight & Relative Paths: *INCLUDE paths are highlighted in blue (resolved) or orange (missing). Resolves relative paths like *INCLUDE_PATH and ../.
Large File Preview: Hover over include paths to utilize an internal O(1) async streaming reader to show header previews.
Project Include Tree: Presents the nested hierarchy reference tree of the main model and all sub-included files in the sidebar.
Keyword Index Outline: The sidebar provides an overview tree of all used keywords in the current file, with jump-to-definition.

Include Tree & Index	Hover Preview

🛠️ Navigation & Parameter (*PARAMETER) Tracking (Click to expand)

Interactive CodeLens:
- Renders "N references" CodeLens above parameter definitions; click to open the reference list.
- Offers formatting and option swapping for keywords (e.g., appending _TITLE to *PART).
Parameter Resolution: Hovering over &parameter variables parses their evaluated values.
Global Rename: Rename parameters globally across the document using the F2 key.
Editing Shuttle: Use Ctrl+Alt+Up / Ctrl+Alt+Down to warp to the previous/next keyword start; supports syntax highlighting and code folding for .k, .key, .dyna, .cfile formats.

Parameter Hints

📖 PDF Manual Integration Setup

Note: Due to size limits, offline PDF manuals are not packaged within the .vsix extension. You can easily configure them using either of the methods below.

🚀 Method 1: Download Pre-packed ZIP (Recommended)

We have pre-packed plug-and-play zip files with SumatraPDF included.

English Version: Download lsdyna_manual_pack_en.zip

How to use: Extract the downloaded zip to any location on your PC. Then, click the gear icon (⚙️) on any hover card in VS Code to set the directory path to your extracted folder.

🛠️ Method 2: DIY Setup

If you prefer using your own PDF files, follow these steps:

Download manuals from Ansys LS-DYNA Official Website.
Download a Portable version of SumatraPDF from SumatraPDF Official Website.
Place all the downloaded PDF files and SumatraPDF.exe into the same folder.
Click the gear icon (⚙️) on the hover card, or search for lsdyna.manualsDir in settings to point to this folder.

⚠️ Important Note The extension indexes PDF pages entirely based on PDF Bookmarks. Filenames do not affect the search, but if you modify or merge the PDFs, you must preserve the original bookmarks for the precise navigation to work.

On Windows, placing SumatraPDF.exe in the manuals directory enables precise page jumps. If SumatraPDF is unavailable or cannot start, DynaSense safely falls back to the system default PDF application; that application may ignore the requested #page= fragment.

⚙️ Extension Settings

In VS Code's settings.json, you can customize the following exclusive configurations:

Setting	Default	Description
`lsdyna.manualsDir`	`"lsdyna_manual_pack"`	Directory containing LS-DYNA PDF manuals and, on Windows, the optional `SumatraPDF.exe`.
`lsdyna.enableTabNavigation`	`true`	Enable smart Tab/Shift+Tab field navigation.
`lsdyna.statusBar.level`	`"simple"`	Controls the DynaSense status bar entry: `off`, `simple`, or `detail`.
`lsdyna.health.showFirstRunNotice`	`true`	Show a one-time environment status notice when an LS-DYNA file has setup items.
`lsdyna.largeFile.enableRendering`	`true`	Enable editor rendering features for very large LS-DYNA files.
`lsdyna.codeLens.showOnAllKeywords`	`false`	Show keyword option CodeLens on every supported keyword.
`lsdyna.hover.previewMaxLines`	`20`	Controls the maximum number of lines displayed when hovering over an included file.
`lsdyna.autoFormat`	`"disabled"`	Experimental cursor-leave formatting mode: `onBlur` or `disabled`.
`lsdyna.language`	`"auto"`	Extension UI and hover language: follow VS Code, Simplified Chinese, or English.
`lsdyna.additionalExtensions`	`[".k",".key",".dyna",".asc"]`	Additional suffixes associated with the LS-DYNA language.
`lsdyna.scanner.fullScanLargeFiles`	`false`	Fully scan large files instead of the optimized head/tail strategy.
`lsdyna.ignoreFormattingKeywords`	`[]`	Keyword names or prefixes excluded from formatting, Tab alignment, and comment completion.
`lsdyna.customValidKeywords`	`["END","TITLE","CASE_BEGIN","CASE_END"]`	Additional keywords accepted by validation; a trailing `*` acts as a prefix wildcard.

[!TIP] File Associations & Icons By default, this extension targets .k, .key, .dyna, .asc files. If you want your custom files to not only be highlighted but also display the exclusive blue engineering icon in the file explorer, use the global setting: "files.associations": { "*.my_ext": "lsdyna" }

Credits & Contributors

This project is a deeply customized and refactored version maintained by hqyyqh. Special thanks to the following upstream open-source projects and original authors, without whose outstanding work this project would not exist:

Upstream Project: This project is forked from osullivryan/vscode-lsdyna. Huge thanks to the original author and core contributors:
- osullivryan (Original Author & Founder)
- DCHartlen (Core Contributor)
- maxiiss (Core Contributor)
- yshl (Contributor)
Database Source: The powerful keyword and field intelligent autocomplete data heavily references and extracts from the official open-source project ansys/pydyna.
Other References: Excellent ecosystem works like vim-lsdyna.

Thank you to all developers who have contributed to the LS-DYNA editor ecosystem!