Actions/Custom Variables/Profiles overhaul #2942

sebjulliand · 2025-10-27T14:04:32Z

Changes

This PR introduce a new Context view as a replacement to the Connection Profiles view.
It is intended to enhance the user experience regarding the management of Actions, Custom Variables and Profiles.

It also introduces a new CustomEditor class that works like CustomUI but allows to open custom editors instead of custom panels.

Actions

Actions are regrouped in three local categories, always displayed:

Member actions
Object actions
Streamfile actions

Optionally, there will be additional categories for each workspace declaring local actions (in a local .vscode/actions.json file). These categories are named after the workspace they come from.

The actions available at the Actions node level are:

Create a new action
Setup local actions
Search actions
- Enables the user to search for actions by their name and command. Each matching action is highlighted in yellow and its description shows search match.
Go to next search result
- Gives focus in the list on the next item that matched the search
Clear search results

Creating a new action is also available on each Action Type node.

Clicking on an action opens the action editor. Making a change to the action will make the editor dirty and saving the action is done like in any editor, using Save (ctrl+s). The action panel was simply turned into an editor.

Right-clicking on an action gives access to these options:

Standard actions and local actions are managed the same way in the UI; they are saved in the connection settings or in the local workspace file depending on their nature.

When an editor is open, an inline action is available on each action to run it on the active editor:

Checking of the action can run on the active editor is done when the action is executed.

Custom Variables

Each variable declared in the current connection settings are listed here and can be created/changed/deleted from this view.

Clicking on variable lets you change its value.

Profiles

Command profiles and Connection profiles have been merged - a process will run when the extension starts to create profiles out of existing Command profiles and show a dialog to warn the user the Command profiles have been migrated.

Profiles can be created from the Profiles node using one of these inline actions:

Create an empty profile
- Asks for the name of the new profile then opens the profile editor.
Create a new profile from the current settings
- Asks for the name of the new profile then shows a notification to switch to it.

Clicking on a profile opens the Profile editor that lets the user change some of the profile settings - object filters, IFS shortcuts and Custom variables are simply listed:

Right-clicking on a profile gives access to these options:

Activating a profile is done using the related inline action on the profile:

Activating a profile will replace the current settings with the profile's. Before the settings are replaced, they are saved back into the profile they belong to, or into the default profile if no profile was active (default profile is a unique profile with no name). This allows to automatically save the profile state before it gets erased.

The active profile is shown in green in the list, and it can't be deleted:

Its name is shown in the context description as well:

Switching back to the default profile is done using the action that appears on the Profiles node inline actions:

When a profile has a Library List Command (formerly a Command Profile), that command is ran and the library list is computed from it when the profile is activated. That operation can be re-run after the profile is made active by clicking the inline action on the profile item (the action only shows up if that profile has a library list command):

How to test this PR

Create, edit, delete, rename, run actions
a. Try generating local actions and make sure they are managed correctly in the local file
Create, edit, delete, rename variables
Create, edit, delete, rename, profiles
a. Make sure custom variables are saved on the profile
b. Make sure settings are correctly saved into the profile so they don't get lost when re-activating it
c. Make sure the UI is consistent with the profile's content (views must be refreshed, etc)
Try actions described in the PR 😅

Checklist

have tested my change
updated relevant documentation

Signed-off-by: Seb Julliand <sjulliand@arcadsoftware.com>

Signed-off-by: Seb Julliand <sebjulliand@gmail.com>

Signed-off-by: Seb Julliand <sjulliand@arcadsoftware.com>

github-actions · 2025-10-27T14:05:18Z

👋 A new build is available for this PR based on db2abef.

worksofliam

Initial review :)

src/ui/diagnostics.ts

src/ui/views/environment/environmentView.ts

src/extension.ts

src/instantiate.ts

worksofliam · 2025-10-27T16:16:47Z

Personally I am not sure how I feel about the 'unload' being the refresh icon:

Signed-off-by: Seb Julliand <sebjulliand@gmail.com>

github-actions · 2025-10-27T17:56:14Z

👋 A new build is available for this PR based on f995092.

sebjulliand · 2025-10-27T18:02:00Z

Personally I am not sure how I feel about the 'unload' being the refresh icon:

I reused what your past self picked 😅

But I agree this may be confusing. How about arrow-circle-left since arrow-circle-right is used to activate the profiles?

Signed-off-by: Seb Julliand <sebjulliand@gmail.com>

github-actions · 2025-10-27T18:11:48Z

👋 A new build is available for this PR based on 744abdd.

Signed-off-by: Seb Julliand <sebjulliand@gmail.com>

…ited Signed-off-by: Seb Julliand <sebjulliand@gmail.com>

sebjulliand · 2025-11-20T19:50:13Z

Back at you folks, I updated the icons and fixed the reported issues.
I also added additional checks so actions and profiles can't be renamed/deleted while being edited.

SanjulaGanepola

@sebjulliand Found a couple more issues during testing:

You can have custom variables with no value. Is this expected? If yes, it breaks loading items in the Object Browser (getting Cannot read properties of undefined (reading 'replace')):

Looks like there is an issue with the library list validation (maybe unrelated to the specific changes in this PR?) where it complains about the wrong library not existing. In the example below SANJULA exists, but not SANJULA1:

I also added additional checks so actions and profiles can't be renamed/deleted while being edited.

Should we do the same for Copy?

I listed below a couple more ideas having just played around with this more. Feel free to not do these if you think it is best as is or we can also do them in a different PR as well since this one is quite big.

What do you think about adding icons to the Environment view tree item headings. This will also avoid having to adding additional descriptions such as workspace actions:

Actions: collection or code-oss
- Member: file-code
- Object: database
- Streamfile: file-text or file
- Workspace Folder: folder (we could then drop the workspace actions description?)
Custom Variables: variable-group
Profiles: account

Similar to the search match yellow highlighting, what if we highlighted in blue for example which actions are usable based on the active editor?

SanjulaGanepola · 2025-11-28T17:41:35Z

Found an issue with editing the Library List Command. Steps to reproduce:

Create a profile
Edit profile and set CHGLIBL LIBL(QGPL QTEMP) as Library List Command
Set profile as active
Edit or remove Library List Command
Unload profile
Go to edit the profile and see the edit you made was not persisted

SanjulaGanepola · 2025-11-28T17:47:25Z

Other ideas:

When we do a Launch Workspace Actions Setup..., can we auto refresh the view so it loads the new actions?
When we get the Local actions are already defined for this workspace. Do you want to overwrite them? message, can we get an option to Append?

Signed-off-by: Seb Julliand <sebjulliand@gmail.com>

sebjulliand · 2025-11-30T11:09:02Z

You can have custom variables with no value. Is this expected? If yes, it breaks loading items in the Object Browser (getting Cannot read properties of undefined (reading 'replace'))

@SanjulaGanepola, yes, having empty valued variables is allowed. But it doesn't seem to break the loading on my end.
Besides, an empty string isn't undefined and shouldn't break anything.

But I was able to reproduce the issue by manually removing the value of a variable in my user settings JSON, making it undefined. I'll check if there's a use path that creates variables with undefined values then.

Signed-off-by: Seb Julliand <sebjulliand@gmail.com>

sebjulliand · 2025-11-30T11:30:27Z

Found the issue...creating a variable and escaping the value prompt would create a variable with undefined value. I fixed that and also prevented loading undefined variable values, just to be safe.

Looks like there is an issue with the library list validation (maybe unrelated to the specific changes in this PR?) where it complains about the wrong library not existing. In the example below SANJULA exists, but not SANJULA1:
image

I couldn't reproduce this one. Since it pass the library list onto content.validateLibraryList, could you check your Code for i output after you see that dialog with the wrong library being reported? Since the name is valid, I assume that liblist is reporting something weird.

Should we do the same for Copy?

I don't think so. Copy will not break the configuration or create unexpected results if run on an item being edited.

Signed-off-by: Seb Julliand <sebjulliand@gmail.com>

sebjulliand · 2025-12-01T22:53:49Z

Thanks again for your review and your suggestions @SanjulaGanepola 😄
I did my best to fix the few remaining quirks and enhance the view based on your suggestions.

Here goes:

Added icons for nodes
Highlight in blue actions that can run on the active editor
- Highlighted in green instead if it's a search match
- Run action on editor inline action only active if the action is highlighted
Fixed the library list command not being saved after unloading a profile
Actions node refreshes itself whenever a local actions file is changed
Launch Workspace Actions Setup... will now offer to Append to the existing local actions, appending an index to the new action names to prevent duplicates

Back at you for a (hopefully) final review 😅 Thanks!

SanjulaGanepola

I couldn't reproduce this one. Since it pass the library list onto content.validateLibraryList, could you check your Code for i output after you see that dialog with the wrong library being reported? Since the name is valid, I assume that liblist is reporting something weird.

Found the problem with the library list -> In the screenshot below, SANJULA exists and SANJULA1 doesn't, but SANJULA is still found in the string so it complains about it:

Found another issue -> If you make some changes to a profile (ie. add/delete variables, change library list, add/delete filters) and then go to edit the profile, the contents displayed is outdated since it wasn't saved back to the profile yet. For example, the mis-matching variables below. Similar to 4bff5c3, maybe we need to apply changes back to the active profile directly?

SanjulaGanepola · 2025-12-02T16:30:44Z

src/ui/views/environment/connectionProfiles.ts

+    if (!name) {
+      return l10n.t('Name cannot be empty');
+    }
+    else if (names.includes(name.toLocaleUpperCase())) {


This check failed for me since the items in names weren't also uppercased. We should make the same change in all validateName functions.

sebjulliand and others added 12 commits October 20, 2025 14:00

Initialized context view work

ad5eadc

Signed-off-by: Seb Julliand <sjulliand@arcadsoftware.com>

Added CustomEditor

941a4f8

Signed-off-by: Seb Julliand <sebjulliand@gmail.com>

Made resfresh() async

a978131

Signed-off-by: Seb Julliand <sebjulliand@gmail.com>

Actions management overhaul

626817c

Signed-off-by: Seb Julliand <sebjulliand@gmail.com>

Call new refresh context command

c502113

Signed-off-by: Seb Julliand <sebjulliand@gmail.com>

Added custom variable management to context view

3fcea1b

Signed-off-by: Seb Julliand <sebjulliand@gmail.com>

Implemented Connection Profile management

638095c

Signed-off-by: Seb Julliand <sebjulliand@gmail.com>

Removed header in profile tooltip

a83d44a

Signed-off-by: Seb Julliand <sebjulliand@gmail.com>

Fixed code-for-ibmi:activeProfile not being set

ff974db

Signed-off-by: Seb Julliand <sebjulliand@gmail.com>

Fixed library list command exec + retrieve and clear old storage value

1e2c035

Signed-off-by: Seb Julliand <sjulliand@arcadsoftware.com>

Fixed filters display in profile editor

8dc45dd

Signed-off-by: Seb Julliand <sjulliand@arcadsoftware.com>

Only show workspace action node if there are actions in it

131550d

Signed-off-by: Seb Julliand <sjulliand@arcadsoftware.com>

sebjulliand added this to the 3.0.0 milestone Oct 27, 2025

sebjulliand requested a review from a team October 27, 2025 14:04

sebjulliand self-assigned this Oct 27, 2025

sebjulliand added the enhancement New feature or request label Oct 27, 2025

sebjulliand had a problem deploying to testing_environment October 27, 2025 14:04 — with GitHub Actions Failure

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Put back Actions status command + give focus to Actions node

f995092

Signed-off-by: Seb Julliand <sebjulliand@gmail.com>

sebjulliand had a problem deploying to testing_environment October 27, 2025 17:55 — with GitHub Actions Failure

Moved node classes in their own files

744abdd

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Put profile merger function in its own file

46b31c5

Signed-off-by: Seb Julliand <sebjulliand@gmail.com>

Fixed typings

f3faead

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Prevent actions and profiles from being renamed/deleted when being ed…

c9fc476

…ited Signed-off-by: Seb Julliand <sebjulliand@gmail.com>

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SanjulaGanepola mentioned this pull request Nov 25, 2025

Custom Variables when using Project Explorer #2985

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SanjulaGanepola linked an issue Nov 28, 2025 that may be closed by this pull request

Custom Variables when using Project Explorer #2985

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Merge branch 'master' into profilesOverhaul

a265b36

Signed-off-by: Seb Julliand <sebjulliand@gmail.com>

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Use CustomVariables.getAll where applicable

4c4e6bd

Signed-off-by: Seb Julliand <sebjulliand@gmail.com>

sebjulliand added 2 commits November 30, 2025 12:20

Fixed variables created with undefined values

55e677d

Signed-off-by: Seb Julliand <sebjulliand@gmail.com>

Avoid crash if variable value is undefined

6d1e689

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sebjulliand added 2 commits November 30, 2025 17:20

Added icons on environment Nodes

3e2152d

Signed-off-by: Seb Julliand <sebjulliand@gmail.com>

Enable action run command based on active editor + highlight

67e989e

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sebjulliand added 2 commits December 1, 2025 21:16

Save setLibraryList command when changed on active profile

4bff5c3

Signed-off-by: Seb Julliand <sebjulliand@gmail.com>

Prevent profile from being loaded/unloaded when being edited

d930419

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sebjulliand added 2 commits December 1, 2025 23:19

Added 'append' option when generating local actions

1f393a3

Signed-off-by: Seb Julliand <sebjulliand@gmail.com>

Refresh actions when location actions file change

db2abef

Signed-off-by: Seb Julliand <sebjulliand@gmail.com>

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Actions/Custom Variables/Profiles overhaul #2942

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