[che-dev] Che-Theia Plug-in API enhancement: Webview in a separate sidec

[Artem Zatsarynnyi <azatsary@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Hello,

In Che 7.24, we've finished the adaptation of Webview Che-Theia Plug-in API to work in a separate sidecar environment.

For more details, see the issues [1], [2] and the Che-Theia / upstream Theia PRs [3], [4], [5], [6].

Today, more and more VS Code extensions are continuing to adopt Webview API to provide its functionality.
Previously, it wasn't possible to run such VS Code extensions in Che, since:
1/ most of them require to be running in a separate sidecar container, due to the external dependencies
2/ Webview Plug-in API was working only in the same container as Che-Theia since it's done by design in VS Code and upstream Theia

We've made a significant Che-Theia Webview Plug-in API improvement that opens the door to Che

for all of the VS Code extensions that provide Webview-based functionality.

If previously you've faced some issues with your Che-Theia Plug-in due to a not working Webview,

it's time to check it again - a Webview-related part of it should work well now.

While working on that, we've already checked that some of the known issues are gone, e.g. with PlantUML [7], Quarkus [8], Didact [9].
But if you've faced any issue with a Webview, please open a ticked in Che Github repo [10] and we will take a look at it.

Kudos to @Vladyslav Zhukovskyi who made all the necessary investigation and hard work on that!

[1] https://github.com/eclipse/che/issues/16870
[2] https://github.com/eclipse/che/issues/18405
[3] https://github.com/eclipse/che-theia/pull/947
[4] https://github.com/eclipse/che-theia/pull/946
[5] https://github.com/eclipse-theia/theia/pull/8832
[6] https://github.com/eclipse-theia/theia/pull/8833
[7] https://github.com/eclipse/che-plugin-registry/pull/624#issuecomment-748700715
[8] https://github.com/eclipse/che/issues/17994#issuecomment-749196145
[9] https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=redhat.vscode-didact

[10] https://github.com/eclipse/che/issues

--

Artem Zatsarynnyi

Senior Software Engineer, DevTools
Editors Team Lead, Eclipse Che

Red Hat