@sap-devx/webview-rpc

v1.0.0

Published

7 months ago

An RPC library for VSCode WebViews

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rima.sirich

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vscode-webview-rpc-lib

Description

Provides a conventient way to communicate between VSCode extension and its webviews. Use RPC calls to invoke functions on the webview, receive callbacks and vice versa.

Requirements

You need to have node.js installed on your machine. Also, to use this library, you need to run it inside a VSCode extension using VSCode or Theia.

How to use

An example of using this libary can be seen under the "example" folder.

Installation

Create VSCode extension with a Webview. To create your extension go to https://code.visualstudio.com/api/extension-guides/webview.
Install using npm
```
npm install @sap-devx/webview-rpc
```
This will install the library in your node_modules folder. The extension library can be used as any node.js module (with TypeScript). The webview library needs to be imported to your html.

Add the following script to the root html of your Webview

<head>
    <script>var exports = {};</script>
    <script type="module" src="vscode-resource:/node_modules/@sap-devx/webview-rpc/out.browser/rpc-common.js"></script>
    <script type="module" src="vscode-resource:/node_modules/@sap-devx/webview-rpc/out.browser/rpc-browser.js"></script>
    <script type="module" src="vscode-resource:/out/media/main.js"></script>
</head>

Initializations

Create new instance of the Rpc in the extension side and the Webview side

In the extension code use the following example to start new instance of the RpcExtension:
```
this._rpc = new RpcExtension(this._panel.webview);
```
In the Webview JS code use the following example to start new instance of the RpcBrowser:
```
const vscode = acquireVsCodeApi();
let rpc = new RpcBrowser(window, vscode);
```

Register methods

In order to invoke an extension method from the webbiew or webview method from the extension, you will have to register the functions that can be invoked. Here is an example on how to register the methods

function add(a,b) {
    return a+b;
}

rpc.registerMethod({func: add});

Usage

To invoke a method use the invoke method on the rpc instance. You can pass a callback that will be invoked once the response received.
For version < 1.x :

rpc.invoke("add", [1,2]).then((response)=>{
    console.log("1+2="+response);
});

Since version 1.x :

rpc.invoke("add", 1,2).then((response)=>{
    console.log("1+2="+response);
});

Build and Development

To build for development purpose do the following:

Run "npm install" on the repo to download the project dependencies.
```
npm install @sap-devx/webview-rpc
```
Run "npm run compile-ext" to compile the extension library sources to javascript. The compilation results will be on the directory "out.ext".
```
npm run compile-ext
```
Run "npm run compile-browser" to compile the browser library sources to javascript. The compilation results will be on the directory "out.browser".
```
npm run compile-browser
```
Run the test using "npm run test".
```
npm run test
```

Known Issues

Browser library is does not generate d.ts files.
overcome Cors issue preventing post message to get through and hit the window: use the setHost method and sent the host name from the webview - and then the message should get through.

How to obtain support

To get more help, support and information please open a github issue.

Contributing

Contributing information can be found in the CONTRIBUTING.md file.

To-Do (upcoming changes)

remove the need to decalre exposed functions