What’s the recommended way to get selected text in the editor

[Oliver-Weng-Sorcerer]

Currently I’m working on an additional feature, wondering what’s the best way to get the selected text in the editor.

Is there any Js object exposed in root document something like “editor.getSlection()” exists?

currently I’m using document.selection().toString(), but that doesn’t work well with Firefox.

Any ideas ?

[Oliver-Weng-Sorcerer]

@code-asher

[code-asher]

I am not sure JavaScript-level features will work very well here. The best method is to go through the Code API via a custom extension. https://code.visualstudio.com/api/references/vscode-api For example (untested): ``` const editor = vscode.window.activeTextEditor conts text = editor.getText(editor.selection) ````

[Oliver-Weng-Sorcerer]

HI @code-asher ,

I have built a vscode extension and published to the open vsx registry.

but when I try to use the command

code-server --install-extension xxxxx
it says: Incompatible: Can't install xxxxxxxx.xxxxxxx extension because it is not compatible with the current version of code-server (version 1.66.2).

any insight about this one ?

[Oliver-Weng-Sorcerer]

I got the version issue resolved, now the log says the extension is successfully installed but it doesn't show as in installed extension panel.
am I missing any steps ?

[jsjoeio]

Hmm...do you have any logs in the console? It should show up. Happy to test as well if the extension is open source.

[Oliver-Weng-Sorcerer]

@jsjoeio
Hi there, it's all set, the issue was: the code server was installed under a particular user, but then the extension was installed under root user. as soon as I installed the extension under the user level, it works.

[jsjoeio]

ohhh! hooray!

[Oliver-Weng-Sorcerer]

Hi @jsjoeio and @code-asher ,

I'm not sure if it's just me or it's a bug.

here is what I see right now.

my extension has this code snippet in it. vscode.env.clipboard.readText(); it reads the system clipboard from vscode object.

but whenever I use the extension in the code server in Firefox, and start writing content in a file, it gives me this error. but it's happening in chrome.

I'm wondering if code server internally interpret the vscode.env.clipboard object to navigator.clipboard, since it's currently a firefox limitation.

Any workaround to avoid the warning message downbelow?

ref: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Clipboard/read

[jsjoeio]

See: https://code.visualstudio.com/api/extension-guides/web-extensions#update-existing-extensions-to-web-extensions

[Oliver-Weng-Sorcerer]

Hi @jsjoeio

I ran some experiment with the web extension option, that's not going to work for me, because I'm using some of the node libraries which is only available in regular extension runtime.

but what's interesting is that the extension works well in chrome with code server, but not working well in firefox. (I tried vscode.dev it doesn't allow me to install the extension, it says "extension is not available in Visual Studio Code for the Web." )

I'm wondering what's the alternative here ?

[jsjoeio]

Hmm... one alternative is to tell your users they must use Chrome. I don't like that personally. You probably need to re-write your code to support all browsers, which means you might need to use the navigator API directly instead of the VS Code one. That's the route I would take personally. I dug into the VS Code types and it doesn't seem like their API has something like requestClipboardPermissions.

For example, Firefox does not yet support the "clipboard-read" and "clipboard-write" permissions, so access to the methods that access and change the contents of the clipboard are restricted in other ways.

Hmm...seems like a blocker.

Note: At this time, while Firefox does implement read(), it does not recognize the "clipboard-read" permission, so attempting to use the Permissions API to manage access to the API will not work.

Yeah hmm...I think you might need to use a different solution then. This seems like a blocker at the browser level.

source

[Oliver-Weng-Sorcerer]

@jsjoeio , yup, that makes sense, thank you for the brainstorming and info sharing. helps a lot.

[jsjoeio]

This was actually really fun because it was specific and something I've worked with before so thanks for letting me brainstorm with you! Good luck!