Extension Details

D-Velop Extension for Nova

Note that serve-d, upon which this extension depends, is still being
actively developed. However, the features which do not rely on the language server
such as syntax highlighting and symbolication are known to work well.

D-Velop provides deep integration with D via the Serve-D Language Server, as well as a Tree-sitter D grammar.

✨ Features ✨

• Syntax highlighting
• Indentation (automatic, somewhat limited)
• Symbols
• Folding
• Format File (including On Save) or Selection
• Rename Symbol (local to file only)
• Jump To Definition
• Find Symbol(s)
• Find Reference(s)
• Build Tasks
• Issue Parsing (from DUB or DMD output)
• Sort Imports
• Signature Assistance
• Code Quality Hints
• Support for D 2.101

📸 Screenshots 📸

⚙️ Language Server Integration ⚙️

D-Velop requires the serve-d language server for full functionality.

By default, it will offer to download and use a current version of serve-d
from the official GitHub releases for that project. It will also check
for a newer version when you first start the editor. Additionally you can
check for a newer version manually by using the Extensions → D-Velop → Check for Update
menu selection.

If you prefer to use a copy installed locally, you can select a path to
serve-d in the Preferences for the extension. Make sure to mark the
Custom Serve-D Installation option and configure the path properly.

You can disable automatic updates if you prefer. Also, you can live a little
more on the edge by checking the Use Beta Releases option.
(Note that at this time D-Velop will automatically select the the most
recent 0.8.0 beta release, as that is required to function, until 0.8.0
or newer is released.)

As of this writing, serve-d 0.8.0-beta.14 is the newest release
available, and is recommended for all users (at least until a newer release
is available.) Earlier releases may have reduced functionality.

🛡️ Security Considerations 🛡️

You may notice that this extension needs entitlements to access
the network and to read and write local files. These are used
solely to support updating the language server. No files outside
of the extension's private area are accessed directly, and the
only requests made are read-only unauthenticated requests to access
the public release information and actually download the binary
needed for serve-d.

If you are concerned, you may download and configure your own
copy of serve-d, and disable the automatic downloads. This
will prevent both direct access to the network by this extension,
as well as direct filesystem access. Note however that serve-d
may itself perform those activities.

You may also disable the use of the language server entirely, which
can be done globally, but maybe overridden on a per project basis.
Of course, if you do this, you will lose access to a significant portion of
the functionality that D-Velop can provide, although a fair amount
of useful functionality will remain.

🔮 Future Directions 🔮

More control over the diagnostic hints provided by serve-d would be nice as well.

Richer support for configuration of build recipes and settings, such as
selecting different configurations, is planned.

Import order sorting works now, but is somewhat limited. We would like to
see this tied into the formatting as an option when formatting documents.

We anticipate that serve-d will grow additional capabilities, and when
it does we will try to enable such functionality here.

Debugging support via the Debug Adapter Protocol is something we anticipate in
the future, once we figure out a nice way to deliver a version of LLDB with
D language support enabled. (We've already done this for our other language
extensions, but as always, D is a little bit ... erm... special.) If someone
wants to help out with this effort, which is mostly a packaging/delivery problem,
please reach out to us.

🐜 Bugs 🐜

Note that earlier versions of Nova had bugs which impacted the functionality
of this extension. It is recommended to update to Nova 10.4 or better.

• Symbol renames can mess up highlighting. Make a subsequent change to refresh the
  tree-sitter grammar's view of things. This appears to be a Nova defect.

• serve-d only supports renaming local symbols (including function parameters).
  We hope someday this will improve, and when it does this extension should just
  automatically benefit.

• Sometimes, serve-d may not restart correctly. This usually happens when
  changing one of the few options which require a server restart. If this
  happens, try using the Restart Server command from the Command Palette,
  or the Information pane of the D-Velop sidebar. However, if you're
  using a recent (0.8.0-beta.10 or newer) version of serve-d, most of these
  problems should be a thing of the past.

• Sometimes serve-d will appear to ask to download a newer version of DCD,
  but then doesn't actually appear to use it. This is a problem in serve-d.
  You can work around it by uninstalling DCD (typically installed via homebrew),
  or by updating the version on your $PATH to the latest version.

• Find Symbol does not select the signature portion of a definition for a
  function, method, struct, class, etc. This is a defect in serve-d.

• Find Symbol and Jump to Definition may give inconsistent results.
  This can happen while serve-d is still building indexes, but it would appear
  that serve-d may have other issues in this area. When serve-d gets fixed,
  this extension will automatically benefit.

• Find Symbol, Jump to Definition, and similar do not work correctly
  with symbols that are provided by mixins. This is a limitation in serve-d,
  and will hopefully be addressed in future updates of that project.

⚖️ Legal Notices ⚖️

Copyright © 2024 Staysail Systems, Inc.

This extension is made available under the terms of the MIT License.

The D Rocket logo is used under license.

Some of the code in this extension was adapted from Cameron Little's
excellent TypeScript extension for Nova.
That extension is also licensed under the MIT license and carries the
following copyright notice:

Copyright (c) 2020 Cameron Little

Version 1.0.6

Bumps Tree-Sitter grammar to 0.8.2, fixing several queries.
Support for nesting comments is limited to 5 levels of nesting.

Version 1.0.5

Bumps Tree-Sitter grammar to 0.6.0, and updates queries, to support
interpolated strings.

Version 1.0.4

Bumps Tree-Sitter grammar to 0.5.1, and updates queries. The main benefits
here are support for some newer constructs (named arguments, hex strings),
and better highlighting of some values such as embedded escape sequences.

Version 1.0.3

Bumps Tree-Sitter grammar to 0.4.0. This includes minor changes for
queries.

Version 1.0.2

Better support for unit testing (assertions will be issues).

Find References pane now shows content preview even for files not open.

Debugging of this extension is off by default (should help performance).

Version 1.0.1

Fix highlighting of some type aliases (e.g. "string", "ptrdiff_t") when they
appear in imports or other contexts that are not a type.

Tweak the highlighting for import package names to use a the @processing
selector, which is a little less jarring in most themes than @cdata.

Version 1.0.0

Enable -unittest for Weka repository users.
Formalize for a non-beta release.

Version 0.9.16

Trivial description change to make finding us (searching for dlang) easier.
There are no functional changes in this release.

Version 0.9.15

Better highlighting for string, ptrdiff_t, etc.

Version 0.9.14

Fix regression in symbolication query (from 0.9.13).

Version 0.9.13

Find references no longer opens files that are not already open.
This eliminates the very long stalls when looking for a symbol that appears
widely, especially in the standard library, such as toString. As a result
we do not provide a preview of those cases in the sidebar, instead just
showing ellipses.

Numerous improvements to syntax highlighting.

Version 0.9.12

Added support for Find References. This depends on new functionality
in serve-d itself, and is experimental. The functionality in serve-d
is anticipated to be in the release after 0.8.11.

Note that occasionally serve-d may crash when running this -- due to
bugs in serve-d which we anticipate will be fixed over time. Likewise,
the accuracy of these references is somewhat limited as the current
implementation in serve-d is somewhat naive - so for example references
in mixins or certain other constructs won't necessarily be picked up.

We expect this to improve over time, as serve-d becomes more sophisticated.

Version 0.9.11

Improved indentation.

Version 0.9.10

Highlighting fix. In some circumstances attributes were highlighted
inconsistently or incorrectly.

Version 0.9.9

It is possible to change the compiler used for DUB recipes, as well
as other settings like the architecture and build type now. Note that
explicitly changing the architecture may or may not work depending on
your compiler. For best results we recommend using ldc2.

Initialization handling was not quite right due to a source code management
snafu. Additionally, we now properly report when the LSP is disabled.

The old DMD path configuration setting didn't actually do anything useful,
unless you needed to compile DCD, which should never happen now. We have
removed it.

Version 0.9.8

New initialization handling. This should be far more robust than previous
versions. It requires serve-d 0.8.0 beta 10 or better, which also includes
important fixes for stability of the language server.

New sidebar information pane with details about the language server, and the
ability to restart it.

Version 0.9.7

Find Symbol support and the new sidebar.

Button fix for rename.

Version 0.9.6

Format Selection.

Menu access to extension preferences and restart server.

With the release of Nova 10.4, the problem with serialization of 1 and 0
in the LSP client is gone, and the associated workarounds and limits are
removed. It is recommended to upgrade to Nova 10.4 or better.

Version 0.9.5

Finer grained highlighting for keywords.

Enumeration members symbolicated correctly.

Server debugging enabled conditionally via configuration.

Version 0.9.4

Another fix for an update regression. Are we loving JavaScript yet? (not!)

Version 0.9.3

Fix for accidental regression which broke most of the extension.

Version 0.9.2

Minor bug fixes observed while porting this to C-Dragon. It's
unlikely that anyone has been impacted by these bugs (mostly errors
in error branches), but let's fix them!

Version 0.9.1

Added funding link (sponsorship button).

Version 0.9.0

Fix for update (again). Thanks to Paul Winder for the suggested fix.

Fix for Format On Save.

Several formatting settings would not apply without an extension restart.
This is now fixed.

New ability to disable the language server. If this is checked, then this
becomes a "dumb" extension, which provides Syntax highlighting, indentation,
and symbolication only. Formatting, some navigation, and symbol renaming,
and import sorting will all not operate without a language server.

If the language server is disabled, then this extension will also never
attempt to access the network or run any external processes, with the exception
that some limited build recipes may remain available.

Extension Preferences command renamed to Extension Preferences to help
disambiguate it from the project-local Preferences command.

When using a custom server, the "default" server is chosen in a way that
will work better for folks using homebrew.

Version 0.8.6

Bug fixes only (for download and restart).

Version 0.8.5

Bitfield support added for tree-sitter. (New in D2.101).

Marked deprecated forms of version and debug constructs using integers as
"invalid". (Technically still valid, but deprecated in D2.101, and not
advised.)

Symbolication of constructor, destructor, and postblits.

Member fields are marked as properties rather than variables.

Other minor tree-sitter query fixes.

Internal refactoring to make code cleaner, and restarts more reliable
(hopefully).

Configuration support for "manyProjects" (so you can silence those
notifications for projects) -- project preference level only at the moment.

Version 0.8.4

Added switch alignment configuration for formatting.

Added ability to configure project import paths.

Added ability to configure DMD path used by serve-d.

Added Sort Imports commands. This only sorts the import block
where the cursor or selection is located. This is a limitation in serve-d.

Version 0.8.3

Added configuration support for formatting. This requires serve-d 0.8.0-beta.9
or better.

Dub recipes are now generated from serve-d.

Nicer DUB logo that adapts to themes (especially dark mode).

Fixed a bug where the "Format On Save" configuration was not respected.

Version 0.8.2

Fix for non-functional format command.

Added support for local symbol renaming (requires serve-d 0.8.0-beta.8 or better).

Note that due to the usual problem with Nova symbols (selections) starting in
columns 0 or 1, or rows 0 or 1, won't work. (Nova issues those as "true" and
"false" in range selections.)

Version 0.8.1

Introduce special tasks for Weka.io staff (local compilation, testing).

More resilient issue matchers from compiler output.

Fixes for server restart (hopefully) to make it less brittle.

Version 0.8.0

Introduce very limited support for DUB. (Will expand.)

Introduce symbolication (which helps the editor understand nesting
levels, and such. The symbols sidebar know provides useful data, and
completions will include some guidance about what is being completed.)

Version 0.7.1

Bug fixes for download process.

Version 0.7

Renamed to D-Velop.

Major refactoring of internal code.

Implemented support for checking/downloading serve-d from GitHub.

Access to preferences and server restart from GUI.

Version 0.6

Various bug fixes.

Version 0.5

Initial preview release

The MIT License

Copyright 2024 Staysail Systems, Inc. info@staysail.tech

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy
of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"),
to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation
the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense,
and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom
the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included
in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR
IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY,
FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL
THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER
LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING
FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS
IN THE SOFTWARE.