Terminal task runner: multiple parallel tasks and the spinner

[dbaeumer]

We need to decide how to provide user feedback about running tasks. With the old output runner there was only one active task presented by the spinner. With the new terminal task system there can be n active parallel tasks which can not be represented by one spinner.

May be it would be cool to have something in the terminal UI for this and only show the spinner for build tasks. If terminals would be tabs we could add a batch to the tab to indicate activity like in the side bar.

@Tyriar FYI.

[Tyriar]

So ProcessTasks would always be busy and ShellTasks would never be, at least until we can pull more info about what's running from the terminal (#20676)?

I really like the idea of having busy indicators on each terminal, it's just a matter of how we change the UI to have tabs in tabs in a way that doesn't ruin our current relatively simple UI.

Another consideration is in how split terminals and terminal tabs would interact in the future, and how the indicator would show up then. Do tabs represent multiple terminals when split or only a single terminal? There are distinct advantages to grouping split terminals within tabs so it's more like how tmux behaves, rather than how editor tabs behave. Related #10546 #7504

[dbaeumer]

I think we can even do that for shell tasks since they start a shell, run the command, and exit the shell. We have a defined begin/end pattern there as well. Otherwise I could not reuse a terminal since I have no idea when a shell is 'ready' to take input. And I think there is no way to every find that out reliable since a running command can read from stdin as well.

[Tyriar]

I think we can even do that for shell tasks since they start a shell, run the command, and exit the shell.

Oh it's not clear to me the distinction between shell and process tasks then? I was thinking a shell task was just running a shell (eg. bash) and a process task was running bash -c?

[wclr]

Hope to see multiple running tasks soon.

[dbaeumer]

@Tyriar no a shell task is running the shell and then the command provided. The process tasks runs the process directly without running a shell. There are situations where users didn't want to have shell interpretation for commands in the tasks system and I kept that for the terminal as well.

[wclr]

I think there running tasks with names should be displayed in the status bar (near git branch, where spinner appears) for user to be sure that task is running, and this probably should be configured in the tasks if task should be shown always when running. Click on this task would open output panel.

[dbaeumer]

@whitecolor nice idea.

[rmgpinto]

Ideas:

• Why not split the Output tab with many task tabs, eg: Task[<task_name_1>], Task[<task_name_2>], ..., Task[<task_name_n>]
• Prompt to terminate a running task, if a task with the same is already running.

[k8w]

Agree with @rmgpinto .

1. User need to know what tasks is running. (output tab is a good way)
2. User need to run multiple tasks parallelly which have different problemMatcher (such as tsc watch and tslint watch)
3. User need to see their log seperately.

[k8w]

And also suggest output panel can be splited horizontally.

For example I have 2 tsc watch running. (tsc watch for backend and frontend)
Always I need to see their output to know whether there is any error.
Always I will start 2 terminal, and layout them horizontally.
It may be great if output panel can do this, because problemMatcher is useful.

[dbaeumer]

For June we decided to dedicate the spinner to the build task only. A real progress reporting UI for tasks needs some more UI design and planning.

[wclr]

In the latest insiders I don't see spinner when tsc watch task is executed in status bar (it was before update).
Then I read the docs about tasks updates
I tried to add "runner": "process", to task:

{
  // See https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=733558
  // for the documentation about the tasks.json format
    "tasks": [
    {
      "taskName": "tsc",
      "version": "0.1.0",
      "runner": "process",
      "command": "node",
      "isShellCommand": true,
      "args": [       
        "./node_modules/typescript/lib/tsc.js", 
        "-w",
        "-p",
        "."
      ],
      "showOutput": "silent",
      "isBackground": true,
      "problemMatcher": "$tsc-watch"
    }    
  ]
}

but it still runs in terminal. How to make it run as a process?

[dbaeumer]

@whitecolor

The runner property can't only be used globally. You are not able to set a runner property local to a task.

We need to check if the schema handles this correctly.

[wclr]

The runner property can't only be used globally.

You mean can only?

Why is it so?

[dbaeumer]

You are correct. Can only be used globally.

We basically want to get rid of the output runner because it has too many problems with output encoding, ANSI control characters and doesn't allow user input. So in the new future we might even deprecate the output runner.

[wclr]

We basically want to get rid of the output runner because it has too many problems with output encoding,

Do not get it. Whou you mean get rid of the output runner? There will be only terminal?

And when it will be possilbe to see status of running task/process.

[stamminator]

With the new terminal task system there can be n active parallel tasks which can not be represented by one spinner.

How can multiple tasks be run in parallel? Is there a way to execute multiple tasks with a single command (such as running all tasks within a given group, for example)? The only way I know to execute multiple tasks is to daisy chain them with dependsOn, but don't they execute synchronously?

[dbaeumer]

If you list more than one task in the dependsOn property they are executed in parallel.

[alexr00]

Terminal tabs have solved this.