Visual Studio Code

I am now using Visual Studio Code for pretty much all coding including Python, PlatformIO and ESPHome, JavaScript.

Today I switched from using the standard Microsoft release to using VSCodium. Then immediately switched back because the Remote Development Extension Pack is not supported.

Settings are in <AppData>/VSCodium

I use VSC to edit Python to create Geoprocessing scripts that I can run in Docker containers.

I use it to develop JavaScript React apps.

I use it to develop apps for Arduino and ESP32 and ESP8266.

Pretty much I use it now for anything that needs coding.

Extensions

The important one is

Settings Sync (uses a Gist on Github)

Use Settings Sync to install the extensions automatically. See also https://vscode.pro/settings-sync

In a browser, log in to github with the correct account. brian32768 for me.
Start VSCode and install Settings Sync.
Click "Login with Github".
Click on the Gist to load, there should be only one.
It should be able to figure everything out from here.

I had to set it temporarily to "Force Download" to get it to sync up the first time.

List of extensions

Probably out of date by the time I look at it again.

Bookmarks
DotENV
ESLint
HTML Preview
HTML snippets
Jupyter
Jupyter Keymap
Jupyter Notebook Renderer
MinifyAll
Powershell
Pylance
Python
Remote - Containers
Remote - SSH
Remote - SSH: Editing Configuration Files
vscode-database
XML
XML Tools
YAML
ZipFS - a zip file system

Settings

Esri used to include a very old version of conda, as of ArcGIS Pro 2.8 it's not so bad, but for other reasons I usually download Miniconda and install it.

If you do not use bash you probably don't need to read this part. Running "conda init --all" in bash threw errors at me. Editing the .bash_profile manually worked. Put something like this at the end of your .bash_profile

CONDA_PATH=/c/Users/bwilson/Miniconda3
export CONDARC=$HOME/bin/condarc
source ${CONDA_PATH}/etc/profile.d/conda.sh

I keep bin/condarc in a github repo at brian32768/windows_bin

You should be able to list available environments with

conda env list

and you should be able to activate the standard Esri environment with

conda activate arcgispro-py3

Your prompt will change to include [arcgispro-py3].

My condarc file now looks like this

There are many problems fixed here. Using condarc works from shells but I found I needed an environment variable CONDARC too so I set that in bashrc as described above.

# This was not working for me so I commented it out.
#channels:
#  - esri
#  - conda-forge
#  - defaults
ssl_verify: true
envs_dirs:
  - C:/ArcGISPro/bin/Python/envs
  - ${LOCALAPPDATA}/ESRI/conda/envs
pkgs_dirs:
  - ${LOCALAPPDATA}/ESRI/conda/pkgs
  - C:/ArcGISPro/bin/Python/pkgs
changeps1: true

Confirm it's really reading the right condarc file with "conda info". Today mine looks like this,

    active environment : None
           shell level : 0
      user config file : C:\Users\bwilson\.condarc
populated config files : C:\Users\bwilson\.condarc
                         J:\.condarc
         conda version : 4.10.1
   conda-build version : not installed
        python version : 3.8.5.final.0
      virtual packages : __cuda=10.1=0
                         __win=0=0
                         __archspec=1=x86_64
      base environment : C:\Users\bwilson\Miniconda3  (writable)
     conda av data dir : C:\Users\bwilson\Miniconda3\etc\conda
 conda av metadata url : https://repo.anaconda.com/pkgs/main
          channel URLs : https://repo.anaconda.com/pkgs/main/win-64
                         https://repo.anaconda.com/pkgs/main/noarch
                         https://repo.anaconda.com/pkgs/r/win-64
                         https://repo.anaconda.com/pkgs/r/noarch
                         https://repo.anaconda.com/pkgs/msys2/win-64
                         https://repo.anaconda.com/pkgs/msys2/noarch
         package cache : C:\Users\bwilson\AppData\Local\ESRI\conda\pkgs
                         C:\ArcGISPro\bin\Python\pkgs
      envs directories : C:\ArcGISPro\bin\Python\envs
                         C:\Users\bwilson\AppData\Local\ESRI\conda\envs
                         C:\Users\bwilson\Miniconda3\envs
                         C:\Users\bwilson\.conda\envs
                         C:\Users\bwilson\AppData\Local\conda\conda\envs
              platform : win-64
            user-agent : conda/4.10.1 requests/2.25.1 CPython/3.8.5 Windows/10 Windows/10.0.19041
         administrator : False
            netrc file : C:\Users\bwilson/.netrc
          offline mode : False

Using clone inside ArcGIS Pro fails

Up until ArcGIS Pro 2.8, Esri installed the conda environment with root permissions so normal users could not modify it. The workaround was to clone and then use the clone as the base in future cloning operations. Cloning the environment instead of modifying the base environment is still highly recommended. I typically set up a new environment for each project as part of my workflow.

If you see the Autopep error

Install that autopep thing for syntax highlighting.

conda install autopep8

It's not finding Python!!

Here is a doc telling where it looks.

Put the commonly used variables into your user settings, File -> Preferences -> Settings -> User -> Extensions -> Python -> Conda Path

"C:/Program Files/ArcGIS/Pro/bin/Python/Scripts/conda.exe"

Reload VSCode. Intellisense should work for you now too.

Now when you select a Python version, the right ones should appear. Make sure you pick the right environment (for me I named it "arcgispro-py3-vscode")

If you do it this way you should be able to use conda correctly from a bash shell too.

(base) brian@murre:~$ conda env list
# conda environments:
#
base                  *  C:\Program Files\ArcGIS\Pro\bin\Python 
arcgispro-py3            C:\Program Files\ArcGIS\Pro\bin\Python\envs\arcgispro-py3
arcgispro-py3-vscode     C:\Users\brian\AppData\Local\ESRI\conda\envs\arcgispro-py3-vscode

conda activate arcgispro-py3-vscode
(arcgispro-py3-vscode) brian@murre:~$
python --version
Python 3.6.10 :: Anaconda, Inc.

and so on...

ESRI .PYT files are not treated as Python

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/29973619/how-to-make-vs-code-to-treat-other-file-extensions-as-certain-language

I put this in my global settings.json file (F1 File:Associations)

   "files.associations": {"*.pyt": "python"}

The glory of debugging Python Flask apps

I use Conda for python environments, so I create a new env from the command line and then restrt VSCode/ Maybe I could create the env INSIDE VSCode but that's not how I do it. Once it's created and VSCode restarted

conda create -n flask
conda activate flask
conda install autopep8
conda install flask

To get going quickly I can just pick that version of python when I hit "F5" to run in the debugger. The service starts running on localhost, http://127.0.0.1:5000/ and you can connect via browser.

Console output shows you connections.

C:\Users\bwilson\source\repos\arcgis_rest> cmd /C "C:\Users\bwilson\AppData\Local\ESRI\conda\envs\flask\python.exe c:\Users\bwilson\.vscode\extensions\ms-python.python-2020.10.332292344\pythonFiles\lib\python\debugpy\launcher 57269 -- c:\Users\bwilson\source\repos\arcgis_rest\flask_test.py "
 * Serving Flask app "flask_test" (lazy loading)
 * Environment: production
   WARNING: This is a development server. Do not use it in a production deployment.
   Use a production WSGI server instead.
 * Debug mode: off
 * Running on http://127.0.0.1:5000/ (Press CTRL+C to quit)
127.0.0.1 - - [05/Nov/2020 11:05:50] "GET / HTTP/1.1" 200 -
127.0.0.1 - - [05/Nov/2020 11:05:50] "GET /favicon.ico HTTP/1.1" 404 -

Setting breakpoints works. For example, set a breakpoint in a route handler then hit the associated URL and execution stops so you can examine variables, trace code flow, etc...

VSCode + Flask

Basically, VSCode is a totally awesome tool for developing Flask apps.

I can create a .vscode/launch.json

{
    // Use IntelliSense to learn about possible attributes.
    // Hover to view descriptions of existing attributes.
    // For more information, visit: https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?linkid=830387
    "version": "0.2.0",
    "configurations": [
        {
            "name": "Python: Flask",
            "type": "python",
            "request": "launch",
            "module": "flask",
            "cwd": "${workspaceFolder}/flask_auth_test",
            "env": {
                "FLASK_APP": "app.py", // a single py file here or a module name, typically "app"
                "FLASK_ENV": "development",
                "FLASK_DEBUG": "0"
            },
            "args": [
                "run",
                "--no-debugger",
                "--no-reload"
            ],
            "jinja": "true",
            "console": "internalConsole" // I had to start using this to avoid "launcher timed out" failures in Windows 10.
        }
    ]
}

The further glory of debugging ArcGIS Pro Python Toolboxes

There are notes here for Visual Studio and PyCharm. I based this section on that.

Defeat caching

First off you need to force reloading in ArcGIS Pro else you will have to quit and restart Pro every time you make a change in the Python.

In the PYT file do something like this

import importlib
import your_tool_module
import.reload(your_tool_module)
from your_tool_module import YourTool

and when you are done developing, comment out the first three lines so that caching can work again. In Pro, use right-click + Refresh on the PYT to reload the python module(s).

Attach to a running Python

See Launch vs attach.

1. Load up the tool in ArcGIS Pro (open it in other words.)

Remote development

I've now tried this tutorial and learned it works. Python in a Container I got a simple Flask app running and then switched to running even simpler Python scripts in the container.

When I needed to add volume support I discovered this page: VS Code Remote Development It explains the Remote Development extension pack.

• I can use Remote - SSH to treat a remote machine (say, Bellman) as the host for a remote project. (* As recommended by John Sullivan.)
• I can use Remote - Containers to treat a Docker container as the host.
• I can use Remote - WSL too but I don't use Windows Subsystem for Linux currently.

Remote SSH

Once it's set up, working remotely is exactly like working locally. Everything works. It's quite amazing.

The first time you connect successfully over SSH from VSCode, it will install its own service in .vscode-service/ on the remote machine and keep whatever it needs in there.

Python interpreter error

When setting up a new remote machine, you have to manually install the Python extension on the new machine. (You install it just like any extension but tell it to install on the remote machine.)

Until you do, you will get an error whenever you run debug (F5) and not be able to select a python interpreter.

You will notice there is no option at all to select an interpreter in the bottom bar until the extension is installed.

Docker containers

I can keep the code on the local file system or in the container.

My first tests I used the Dockerfile to load my code into the image. It worked fine.

More options:

• clone from github into a running container
• keep code in a volume mounted on the container

Using a volume seems to make the most sense to me. In that setting I can still easily use command line git.

There is a sample based on python, it starts a Debian container and puts a Bash prompt into a Terminal window. It connects when you do F5. Your code is accessible on the local filesystem and in the mounted volume in the container.

git clone https://github.com/Microsoft/vscode-remote-try-python

Write an HTML file

• Install the HTML Preview extension. ctl-k v
• Install Prettifier (see next section on working with JSON.)

Probably I should choose and install some CSS helpers, too.

Working with JSON files

Esri keeps Portal content "source" files in C:/arcgis/arcgisportal/content/items/ Here there be dragons, tread lightly and make backup copies before you edit anything.

I install the 'Duplicate action' extension to create a duplicate as a backup. Select file and then F1-duplicate creates a file with -copy added to its name.

You can attempt to edit these files using the AGO "Arcgis Online Assistant", but it's like doing orthoscopic surgery and I don't get paid enough for that.

Instead I open files in VSCode.

Formatting

Actually everything, not just JSON...

The Esri JSON files are often minified (as in all whitespace removed) making them impossible to edit.

1. Install the extension "Prettier" and set it to be the default formatter. This is good because everything you ever do will be formatted properly.
2. Install Formatting Toggle, because you don't want Prettier turned on all the time!!! This extension puts a control in the lower right corner of VSCode.
3. Install "MinifyAll" so you can go the other direction.

To get Prettier to work, go into VSCode settings and search for "Formatter" and set it to be the Default Formatter". At the bottom of the settings see the Glob thing "Prettier: Document Selectors" and set what kinds of docs you want it to attack.

I also find Insert File extension to be handy and was surprised this is not built in. I put the JSON for a layer in a file like 'precincts.json' and then use Insert File (F1-Insert File) to add it in to the current map that I am editing. It reduces the chances for errors.

To format a doc,

Esri saves things in files that have no extension, so VSCode can't tell what's in the file, it just sees text.

For example, if I open a file named, bb5debcf14db4c48bbd4c54fc0fc207f then it just shows up as grey plain text.

Do this: F1-Change Language Mode and select "JSON" (without support for comments) Now VSCode will treat that file like JSON.

If you have installed a formatter (Prettier), right click to format it and select Format Document. This works even if the formatter is toggled off. You can also just open a minified JSON file and save it. That's right, just do a Ctl-S, and the doc will be completely reformatted, because it's set to do Format On Save by default. If you don't want it automatically formatted, then use Formatting Toggle to turn it off.

To minify a doc, first off, you really don't need to. The next edit-save in ArcGIS Map Viewer will minify it for you. But Ctl-Alt-M will do it, or you can use Ctl-Alt-N to create a "-min" minified doc and leave the json file alone. These are available by right clicking the document or the file in the file explorer pane.