GSoC 2019 Summary: Dart support for the Eclipse IDE

Summary of my Summer of Code 2019

This post is a summary of my Summer of Code 2019. My project was to bring Dart development support to the Eclipse IDE. To do so I created a plugin that consumes the Dart analysis server using LSP4E. It also provides syntax highlighting using TM4E and many more features listed below.

Features

The following list showcases the most significant features of the plugin I (and other contributors) added during GSoC 2019.

• Running Dart programs directly from Eclipse - eclipse/dartboard#1

  • Standard & error output in a dedicated console
  • Support for multiple Launch configurations
  • Running single files from the context menu

• Dart preference page - eclipse/dartboard#10

  • Set the location for the Dart SDK that should be used for all actions
  • Choose whether to automatically synchronize the dependencies of project

• First class Pub support - eclipse/dartboard#107

  • Automatic synchronization of Pub dependencies when changing the pubspec.yaml file
  • Shortcut for running $ pub get manually

• Creating new Dart projects and files - eclipse/dartboard#115

  • Stagehand templates are also supported

• Usage of the Dart logo - eclipse/dartboard@a23fc1f

• Import existing Dart projects directly into the workspace (+ automatic dependency synchronization) - eclipse/dartboard#116

Upstream Bug Fixes

During development I encountered many issues with the libraries and tools I was using. As I was already aware I took the time to fix them directly and provide a patch or PR for the corresponding library.

• A NullPointerException in LSP4E's SymbolsModel#getChildren

  • Issue: eclipse/dartboard#4
  • Fix: Change 139273

• Adjusted the Eclipse Light syntax theme in TM4E to match the classic Eclipse theme better

  • Issue: eclipse/dartboard#21
  • Fix: eclipse/tm4e#215

• Using the quick access menu in Eclipse resulted in an Exception. This was caused by LSP4E not adhering to the LSP spec. - Issue: Bug 548155 - Fix: Change 143723

• The textDocument/didSave notification is not supported by the Dart analysis server but LSP4E sent it anyway and this resulted in an error

  • Issue: eclipse/dartboard#32
  • Fix: Change 143922

• Another NPE in TM4E's ThemeContribution

  • Issue: eclipse/tm4e#207
  • Fix: eclipse/tm4e#217

Things Left to do

I have completed all of my goals I set in the initial proposal for GSoC. However a few things and features have come up during development that I plan on taking care of in the near future.

• Flutter support - Flutter apps need to be run using the special $ flutter command suite, instead of the default SDK
  • eclipse/dartboard#109

Other things that could be enhanced include:

• Pub console - Currently there is now way to see the output of the pub commands
  • eclipse/dartboard#117
• Webdev support - Dart apps that should be run on the browser need to be run using the $ webdev command line tools
  • eclipse/dartboard#110

I hope to be able to work on them but community contributions are always welcome.

A full list of commits and issues can be found on the project's GitHub repository. Installation instructions can also be found there.

Appreciation

In the early days, Lakshminarayana Nekkanti has joined the project as a committer. He has been extremely helpful since by fixing bugs in the Eclipse platform that have been open for years (Bug 513034) and contributing a lot of features and knowledge to the plugin. Thank you, Lakshminarayana!

I would also like to thank Lars Vogel who has been my Mentor and helped tremendously when I was unsure what to do.