All notable changes to the PraatVSCode extension will be documented in this file.
- More diagnostics. PraatVSCode will soon display more errors, warnings and other relevant information before you run your code.
- Substantially better semantic understanding of documents. A new list of Praat classes and methods is being generated. This list contains information about a particular method's input count, the input types, the operator, the separator between inputs and more. As a result, autocompletion and diagnostics will operate much more smoothly.
- Better selection provider. In the future, the extension will also take into account Praat object methods that select their output automatically when listing selections.
- Comprehensive syntax highlighting. A much larger number of built-in Praat functions will be registered in the Praat language grammar.
- Praat path-finding and script execution can be erratic Mac and Linux.
- Control keyword pairs don't check across categories. Thus, if an embedded control keyword is terminated outside the space defined by its containing keyword pair, a diagnostic is not generated. For instance,
forfollowed byiffollowed byendforfollowed byendifshould generate an error, but is not reported. - Similarly,
fiis not yet registered as a valid closing tag forif.
- The regex used to detect control tags now matches tags immediately followed by operators
:or....
- The tag pair
editor-endeditornow recognized as control keywords.
- Tag pair detection now relies on regular expressions instead of (quicker but) less reliable checks through
startsWithTS string method.
⚠️ An update to v0.11.0 will likely reset your Praat executable path! ⚠️
- Active Praat output stream. The extension now directly streams Praat output to its internal output window as opposed to waiting for the script to finish running and dumping the complete output. It also reports script runtime and more clearly highlights the boundaries of script outputs.
- The extension now jumps to the line that caused a crash/error in Praat if the Praat shell streams an error.
- Opening or running scripts in the Praat GUI now hides the picture window by default.
- OS-specific placeholders for the praat path declaration input.
- The script execution mechanism has been overhauled. This means:
- Better performance across different operating systems.
- Cleaner indexing and expandability for code contribution and future optimization.
- Reduced memory and processing load. This is unlikely to effect script runtimes on more modern machines, but will lead to noticeable changes on older hardware.
- Even faster background processing compared to the Praat GUI.
- A greedy regular expression for capturing comments was fixed. This particularly caused problems for vector syntax ('...$#').
- PraatVSCode is now available on open-vsix, the open-source VSCode extension repository. Thus, users of VSCodium can also download PraatVSCode from within the application.
- More tokens for syntax and semantic highlighters.
- Small optimizations in the semantic token provider.
- Unclosed tags (or uninitiated tags) for control keywords are now correctly detected and reported. Some keywords should not be able to "jump" across others. The detection of this will be added later.
- The status bar item for Praat selection now correctly displays line number (if verbosity is max).
- The unclosed tag diagnostics have been temporarily disabled while a duplication bug is addressed.
- Unclosed tag warnings. PraatVSCode will now detect unclosed control tags (e.g., 'for' without 'endfor', etc.) and warn the user in the editor while also pointing to the line where the open tag is.
- Some greedy regular expressions, most notably for quotes, are no longer greedy as they terminate captures at a line break.
- The
Commands.tsfile has been re-formatted and some redundant comments have been removed. All such comments will eventually be removed from the project.
- Development continues after a hiatus.
- Diagnostics for illegal string variable declarations (i.e., without "$" at the end of variable name).
- User-defined string variables now correctly appear in autocompletion.
- Form fields containing negative numbers are now parsed and sent correctly.
- Praat path dialogue box now has existing path (if applicable) as placeholder.
- Praat path input parsing improved (case sensitivity and desktop easter egg).
- Various other bug fixes and optimizations.
- Running scripts with arguments. It is now possible to send scripts to Praat with arguments when dealing with scripts that will only run with certain inputs (e.g., scripts that contain forms).
- The implementation of this feature should replace the "open in praat -> run script" workaround.
- The user does not need to do anything extra. PraatVSCode will simply detect if the current script contains a form field and will fetch all values that would go into the form.
- Praat error handling in VSCode. The PraatVSCode emulation of the Praat output window now displays errors that would otherwise be displayed in pop-up windows while running through Praat. Thus, users can now obtain information about what went wrong with the script and what line failed to execute without leaving the development environment.
- Praat selection provider. You can now go to extension settings and enable the "selection tracker" to see what object(s) you have selected in Praat on a given line. The new item on the status bar will display a list of selected objects and hovering on the item will display the line numbers of selection(s).
- The description of the praatvscode.selectionProviderConfig was a copy of the description of praatvscode.runButtonTwo. It's now correct.
- Diagnostics are only provided if the active document's language is set to Praat.
- Status bar items from PraatVSCode are now only visible if the active document's language is set to Praat.
- Status bar items update more efficiently. Instead of momentarily hiding the status bar items during value changes, the extension now writes changes instantly.
- In light of the the new script running improvements, the default buttons have been changed to "Run in background" and "Run in Praat".
- Fixed a bug causing the "PraatVSCode configuration changed!" alert to pop up on any configuration change (i.e., as opposed to extension-related changes).
- Comprehensive autocompletion. Almost every function that is listed in the Praat manual is now an autocompletion item. Where possible, the selection of a function will output a snippet that can be tab-browsed. However, the list of functions is automatically generated and likely contains errors. The same database of Praat functions will power upcoming features.
- Autosaving files before running scripts. All 3 Praat interface buttons (i.e., "Run in background", "Run in Praat", "Open in Praat") now save documents before sending them to Praat. Thus, the code the user sees will always be the code the user runs.
- Verbosity settings for status bar items. With two "run buttons" and a selection tracker on the way, verbosity settings for the status bar items have been introduced. Users with smaller screens or crowded status bars can enjoy shorter text.
- A bug prevented scripts from being opened or sent to Praat if their file paths contained whitespaces. The issue has been addressed with shell prompt quoting.
- The three available status bar "run buttons" now have sligtly different icons. Thus, users who opted for the "zero verbosity" configuration for status bar items can distinguish between them.
- Semantic highlighting and definitions for user-defined functions (procedures). The semantic features already in place for user-defined variables have been extended to user-defined functions.
- Semantic highlighting and definitions for user-defined variables in forms. The semantic features already in place for user-defined variables have been extended to user-defined variables in forms. For instance, the line "optionmenu tier: 3" designates "tier" as a variable and provides semantic highlighting for all occurrences. This line is also registered as a definition.
- Semantic highlighting and definitions for user-defined variables in loops. The semantic features already in place for user-defined variables have been extended to user-defined variables in loops. For instance, the line "for i from 2 to 16" designates "i" as a variable and provides semantic highlighting for all occurrences. This line is also registered as a definition.
- Classes are now listed separately in the globals list.
- Improvements to syntax highlighting.
- Autocompletion item provider is faster when checking for user-defined variables.
- Defintion and semantic token providers are substantially faster (i.e., better loops) and the source code is cleaner.
- Added better parsing of keywords like "pause" and "comment" which should highlight the rest of the line into as a string.
- Semantic token provider and definition provider now check whether a line is a comment using a function exported from the semantic tokens provider. Comments and form lines (i.e., other than definitions), for instance, are not checked.
- The functionality of the two status bar buttons for interacting with Praat can now be configured by the user. The buttons will update automatically when the user goes to extension settings and updates any configuration under PraatVSCode. The default settings are the "run in background" button for the first, and the "open in Praat" button for the second.
- The "extension.ts" core file has been cleaned up and the design of the extension was further modularized. Commands are now registered through a separate function exported from a separate document. Status bar items are also managed by a separate function.
- The Praat output terminal's name in VSCode has been shortened to "Praat InfoWindow".
This update allows PraatVSCode to have a much deeper, "abstract" understanding of a Praat script using the new features listed below.
- Symbol recognition for user-defined variables. You can search/iterate through user-defined variables which are now registered as symbols in VSCode.
- Semantic highlighting for defintions of user-defined variables. Declaring a variable correctly marks its declaration position with a semantic token type "variable" and semantic token modifier "defintion". Calls to the variable after its declaration are also highlighted as variables.
- Definition provider for user-defined variables. Can't remember where you defined 'targetTier'? Just click on a call of 'targetTier' and hit F12 (or use the right click menu)!
- Reference provider for user-defined variables. You now want to see the references/calls to your very own defined variable? Use Shift+F12 while on a word or F12 while on a definition!
- More readable global database for hover and autocompletion provision.
- Corrected typos in main grammar.
- Optimization of semantic context functions (They no longer look for semantics in commented lines).
- The readme file has been reorganized and now overwhelmingly uses gifs over pngs.
- Autocompletion has been introduced! Currently, some global functions (particularly those listed in the Praat manuals) are supported. More keywords and functions will be added as development continues.
- Hover features have been introduced! This feature uses the same keyword database as the autocompletion. Thus, symbols that can be autocompleted will also display information about themselves when hovered.
- Syntax highlighting support for TextGRID files. The extension also automatically activates when a TextGRID file is opened with VSCode (previously only Praat files).
- A command to get the Praat version. This should come in handy when users try to run functions that require relatively recent Praat versions (e.g., "Run in praat" requires 6.2 and above). The main objective was to have an easy way of fetching Praat version in real time but it's now also human-readable output for convenience.
- The VSCode-Praat terminal interface now only creates one shell instance.
- Messages displayed in notification windows and the VSCode-Praat terminal are better decoded, allowing special characters and line breaks to be read without issues.
- A few errors in existing syntax highlighting regular expressions have been corrected.
- "fi" no longer decreases indent.
- Readme updated with new features, typos corrected, images improved.
- A certain easter egg now addresses "true phoneticians" instead of "true phonologists". Yes.
- Initial release of the first public test version.