A possible way forward for live share integration?

[quoc-ho]

I recently went through the discussions in #2228 and #3217.

It seems that the main obstacle is the fact that vscode live share does not support sharing binary files. But if vscode really only wants a text file, we can give it a text file. I would like to propose a workaround. Admittedly it's somewhat hacky, but the amount of extra code needed should be very minimal. And once vscode live share does support sharing binary files, removing this workaround is also easy.

I wonder if there's any obvious problem with the following approach:

1. When in live share mode, the host creates an extra file output.pdf.yenc after each compilation, which is a text file encoding output.pdf. Here yenc is just an example, chosen due to its efficiency, but base64 of course also works.
2. The extension registers a hook for opening *.pdf.yenc. Opening such a file is pretty much the same as opening a pdf file except for a decoding step before passing decoded data (in an array, not via a file) to pdfjs. This is the path taken by the guest. On the host, everything is the same as now.

There are other bells and whistles like compiling from the guest etc. But being able to preview the pdf already makes collaborating online much easier.

[James-Yu]

I'd really LOVE to see and make that happen. Yet I'm not sure how hard/simple will it be to implement it?

[quoc-ho]

Pdf viewing now works without generating the pdf.liveshare file. Just click on the pdf file as usual on both host and client. The host still has to open it first. This is due to some security check in the extension via the variable isViewing. This can be changed easily if desired. One note is that right after the live share session starts, the first pdf open on the guest might not work. Just close the pdf and reopen, then everything should be fine.

@James-Yu Wanna take a look at https://github.com/quoc-ho/LaTeX-Workshop/tree/live-share-2 and try it out?

[James-Yu]

Let's PR!

[quoc-ho]

Many things still need to be refined and discussed. Should we do that first or open a PR already and continue the discussion there?

[James-Yu]

I’d say a PR is just for that.

ps: I may not be quite active in the following two weeks for irl matters. Will try to be as responsive as I can.

[quoc-ho]

Done!

ps: I may not be quite active in the following two weeks for irl matters. Will try to be as responsive as I can.

Np. Same for me actually :).