API: add a preserveFocus boolean on `createTestRun

[connor4312]

It's common that extensions trigger tests in various ways. Some of those may be user-initiated through UI actions outside of the built-in ones where focus should be transferred, some of them may be triggered in the background where focus should not be transferred. There have been a bunch of issues around this, on our tracker as well as those of community extensions.

I suggest adding an additional option to the TestRunRequest to allow extensions to hint whether focus should be preserved:

	export class TestRunRequest {
		/**
		 * Controls how test Test Results view is focused.  If true, the editor
		 * will keep the maintain the user's focus. If false, the editor will
		 * prefer to move focus into the Test Results view, although
		 * this may be configured by users.
		 */
		readonly preserveFocus: boolean;

Note this is on the TestRunRequest, not the individual TestRun. TestRunRequests can be created both by the the editor and extensions (if they initiate a test run), and this provides control for the latter case.

[DanTup]

"If true, [...]. If false, [...]

I presume undefined is treated like false, but I think it's worth tweaking the text to make this explicit.

It's also not quite clear to me how the user overrides this - is this some tri-state setting like:

• let extension decide whether to show results (default)
• always show results
• never show results

?

[connor4312]

Yea undefined would be the current behavior, which is false (most of the time.)

In the false case this is a 'hint': whether focus is actually moved is controlled by the user's testing.openTesting setting. I'm not planning on having a mechanism to force focus to move, although if an extension really wanted that they could run a command to that effect.

[DanTup]

I think I'm still confused. From the above, it sounds like:

• true - don't open testing view, always keep focus in the editor
• undefined - do what happens today - don't open testing view for programmatic test runs triggered by extensions
• false - does this differ from undefined?

But I'm not sure how I handle Dart-Code/Dart-Code#4951. Maybe the interaction with the user settings needs to be clearer - which different user settings influence the behaviour for each of these values?

[connor4312]

Ah, yea, sorry. It has been a while since I touched that area I thought there we cases where that was false for extension-triggered runs -- so there's no need for undefined, it'll be true/fase (defaulting to true for backwards compatibility.) I updated my initial proposal.

Maybe the interaction with the user settings needs to be clearer - which different user settings influence the behaviour for each of these values?

Whether focus actually moves when false will be controlled by testing.openTesting: the same way as ui-triggered runs do today.

[vogelsgesang]

For my particular use case, I would need slightly different behavior. Essentially, I am offering a "Measure Code Coverage" command. This command is explicitly triggered by the user, i.e. I know the user wants to see the coverage results.

I think the most intuitive behavior would be the following:

• If the user already has a file open, and the coverage run actually provided coverage for that file: Don't switch to the test results view. The user is probably interested in seeing the coverage for the file which he has already open, and the in-editor rendering of the coverage results will allow him to do exactly that.
• If the user has no file open, or if the coverage run did not provide any coverage data for that file, switch focus to the test results / test coverage view

Not sure if my use case could be accommodated somehow by expanding on your proposed design. Maybe my use case is too much of a special case...

[...] if an extension really wanted that they could run a command to that effect.

How would I do that? I couldn't find an API or a command which would allow me to do so

[connor4312]

How would I do that? I couldn't find an API or a command which would allow me to do so

You could run vscode.commands.executeCommand('workbench.panel.testResults.view.focus')

Your use case does seem like it's kind of special, I would say you can use the command for now, unless I get feedback from others asking for something similar for that.

[connor4312]

This is available in the latest Insiders, please try it out and let me know if it works for you

[DanTup]

@connor4312 thanks, this seems to work for me :)

I'm currently setting it like this so I don't have to crank the min VS Code version to get the updated type though 🙂

const request = new vs.TestRunRequest();
(request as any).preserveFocus = false;