Introducing DX Jetpack for VS Code

Strap on this jetpack to boost your developer experience in Visual Studio Code.

DX Jetpack for VS Code was my entry for the 2023 Developer Tools Contest, where it achieved 2nd place in the Experts vote and 5th place in the Community vote. It is an extension pack for VS Code, bundling three entirely new extensions created by me, plus a couple that we at George James Software published previously.

The new extensions are:

• gj :: codeSpex
• ObjectScript Class View
• ServerDiff

If you're reluctant to install DX Jetpack right away, why not try it using a dev container? In the dev container is an InterSystems IRIS Community environment augmented with InterSystems Package Manager (IPM) and the isc-codetidy package.

Launching the Demo

You can either run the demo dev container locally (Docker Desktop is a prerequisite), or you can run it remotely if your GitHub account lets you use Codespaces .

Locally in VS Code Desktop

1. Clone the repo from https://github.com/gjsjohnmurray/dx-jetpack-demo
2. Open the locally-cloned folder in VS Code. If asked to trust the folder, agree.
3. When a notification appears in the bottom right, choose 'Reopen in Container'. If you don't see that notification, try clicking on the bell icon on the far right of the status bar. If that doesn't help, click the green >< at the left end of the status bar, then select Reopen in Container from the Dev Containers section.
4. When the container starts to build you may optionally like to click on the notification and watch the progress messages.
5. When this procedure completes, skip the Codespaces section below and proceed to "Using the Demo".

Remotely on GitHub Codespaces

There's no need to clone https://github.com/gjsjohnmurray/dx-jetpack-demo. Simply go to the Codespaces tab on the dropdown from the green "<> Code" button on that repo's "Code" tab, then opt to "Create codespace on main".

Using the Demo

The README gives detailed instructions, but here are a few teaser screenshots.

gj :: codeSpex

A new way of accessing documentation.

ObjectScript Class View

All the members of a class plus where they are inherited from.

ServerDiff

Changebars showing how your code differs from what is on the server.

Comments, questions etc are welcome on this thread. They can also be posted as issues on the GitHub repositories of each extension. Links to these are available on their Marketplace pages.