⚠️ Archived: Although it was fun to build my nova extensions, I haven't ended up using Nova regularly and can't devote the time to maintenance. Feel free to reach out if you want to fork and start maintaining an alternative.

nova-extension-utils

This package provides sharable utilities for building Nova extensions.

Features

installWrappedDependencies

This function provides a concurrent-safe, reproducible, non-global-polluting mechanism for installing external nodejs dependencies executed by your extension, without bundling them within the extension artifact and increasing extension size. This is especially useful in dev, as it won't trigger reloads of the extension recursively.

To use it, you must have a valid package.json and npm-shrinkwrap.json file in your .novaextension directory. They'll be copied into your extension's global storage and used to install dependencies specified in the shrinkwrap file. An atomic file lock is used to prevent multiple workspaces writing over each other.

installWrappedDependencies

This is an async function that handles installation. Call it during extension activation. It takes a two parameters

1. A composite disposable that on disposal kills the installation process and unlocks. Be sure to dispose when the extension deactivates.
2. An optional options object with the optional properties.
   • console an object who's properties override those of Console. Pass null to fully disable console calls.

registerDependencyUnlockCommand

Registers a global command that will force unlock. Not required, but can be useful to cleanup if crashes happen. Make sure to define the command to give users access.

getDependencyDirectory

Returns a path to the directory containing the installed node_modules directory.

Here's a full example of usage

import { dependencyManagement } from "nova-extension-utils";

const compositeDisposable = new CompositeDisposable();

dependencyManagement.registerDependencyUnlockCommand(
  "com.example.extension.unlock"
);

async function asyncActivate() {
  await dependencyManagement.installWrappedDependencies(compositeDisposable, {
    console: {
      log(...args: Array<unknown>) {
        console.log("dependency management:", ...args);
      },
    },
  });

  const execPath = nova.path.join(
    dependencyManagement.getDependencyDirectory(),
    "node_modules",
    ".bin",
    "executable"
  );
  const process = new Process(execPath);
  compositeDisposable.add({
    dispose() {
      process.terminate();
    },
  });
  process.start();
}

export function activate() {
  console.log("activating...");
  return asyncActivate()
    .catch((err) => {
      console.error(err);
    })
    .then(() => {
      console.log("activated");
    });
}

export function deactivate() {
  compositeDisposable.dispose();
}

asyncNova

showChoicePalette

Asyncronous, generic, non-index-based access to the choice palette.

Example of use

import type * as lspTypes from "vscode-languageserver-protocol";
import { asyncNova } from "nova-extension-utils";

async function foo(items: lspTypes.CompletionItem[]) {
  const choice: lspTypes.CompletionItem | null = await asyncNova(
    items,
    (item) => `${item.label}${item.detail ? `- ${item.detail}` : ""}`,
    { placeholder: "suggestions" }
  );
  if (!choice) {
    return;
  }
  console.log(choice);
}

cleanPath

Function to nicely format paths and file URIs for user-display. Replaces $HOME with ~/, removes volume and file://, and replaces workspace path with ./.

Example of use

import { cleanPath } from "nova-extension-utils";

console.log(cleanPath(editor.document.uri));

preferences

getOverridableBoolean

This provides a common pattern to have a boolean preference that can be set globally or per-workspace, but allows the workspace to override the global preference. The user has the ability to set a preference globally, but they can override it in each workspace. I recommend defaulting to the least-destructive/mutating action globally, to help make it easier to work in shared codebases.

This expects the preference to be set up properly in your extension manifest. You'll configure a global-level boolean (with any default value), and a workspace-level enum (with three possible values of "null", "false", and "true" and a default of "null") with the same preference key.

{
  "config": [
    {
      "key": "apexskier.example.config.myPreference",
      "title": "Example",
      "type": "boolean",
      "default": false
    }
  ],

  "configWorkspace": [
    {
      "key": "apexskier.example.config.myPreference",
      "title": "Example",
      "type": "enum",
      "values": [
        ["null", "Inherit from Global Settings"],
        ["false", "Disable"],
        ["true", "Enable"]
      ],
      "default": "null"
    }
  ]
}

import { preferences } from "nova-extension-utils";

const defaultPrefValue = false;
const prefValue: boolean =
  preferences.getOverridableBoolean("apexskier.example.config.myPreference") ??
  defaultPrefValue;