The VSConan extension helps you manage the conan local cache on your machine. It gives you easy access to your local cache and allows you to manage it by using integrated explorer in the Visual Studio Code without typing a single line of command in the terminal. VSConan provides variety of features, including a quick overview of installed packages, renaming and duplicating profiles, enabling and disabling remotes and more. For more information see Extension Features.
VSConan extension will be activated, if you open the explorer tab on the left side, or if the folder you open contains conanfile.py or conanfile.txt, we call this conan workspace. Once the extension is activated, it will create a default configuration file (if it doesn't exist) under the .vsconan directory in your home folder.
- Windows -
C:\Users\<user>\.vsconan\config.json - Linux -
/home/<user>/.vsconan/config.json
The config.json will have the format as following:
{
"general": {
"python": "python"
},
"explorer": {
"python": "python"
}
}You have to define the location of your python interpreter, where conan is also installed. If you have defined it using environment variable / alias, simply put it directly there as you can see in the example config file above. Otherwise you have to give the full path, where the python interpreter is located.
!!! NOTE !!! Currently only the explorer python from the configuration file is used.
The VSConan extension contains two major groups of features, one of them is the Conan Explorer, where you can use to manage your local cache, and the other one is Conan Workspace, wher 8000 e you can save your configuration of different conan flow commands in your VSCode workspace.
The VSConan extension contributes a Conan Explorer view to VS Code. The Conan Explorer lets you examine and manage important assets of your conan local cache, such as recipe, binary packages, profile and remote.
In the Conan Recipe explorer you can have an overview of the installed conan recipe in your local cache.
As you can see in the picture above, there are several inline options on each item in the treeview.
- Information
Open a web view in VS Code editor, that contains information about this selected recipe. Currently the web view only shows a plain JSON text, that is obtained from the Conan CLI. - Open in Explorer
Open the the recipe path in the explorer - Open in VS Code
Open the selected recipe in a new VS Code window - Remove
Remove the selected recipe
By selecting the recipe, the corresponded binary packages will be shown in this treeview.
Each item of this treeview has following options to offer:
- Open in Explorer
Open the selected binary package in the explorer - Open in VS Code
Open the selected binary package in a new VS Code window - Remove
Remove the selected binary package
All the profiles that you saved on your machine will be listed in this explorer. By pressing + button on top right corner of the treeview, you can create a new empty profile.
As the other treeviews, each item of this treeview contains several functionalities:
- Edit
Open the selected profile in the VS Code editor - Open in Explorer
Open the selected profile in the file explorer - Rename
Rename the selected profile - Duplicate
If you want to change a small detail from a certain profile but you do not want to lose the original profile, we provide you this duplicate option to fulfill your purpose. - Remove
Remove the selected profile
Finally we come to the last part of this explorer, which is the explorer of the conan remote.
The explorer itself provides you following options:
- Edit
Since the collection of remotes in conan is defined in one file calledremotes.json, this option is not available of each remote item in the treeview. This will openremotes.jsonfile in the VS Code editor instead. - Add
Add a new remote
As other treeview, each item is equipped with several options, that you can use to maintain your remotes.
- Rename Remote
Rename the selected remote - Update URL
Modify the URL in the selected remote - Enable Remote
Enable the selected remote. Enabled remotes can be seen from the icon next to the remote name. The remoteconancenterin the picture above is enabled. - Disable Remote
Disable the selected remote. Disabled remotes can be seen from the icon next to the remote name. The remoteanyOtherRemotein the picture above is disabled. - Remove Remote
Remove the selected remote
The Conan Workspace feature provides you configuration file, that can be used to execute predefined conan flow command and its arguments. The configuration will be stored under .vsconan folder in your workspace.
If you work a lot with conan and use VS Code as your IDE, this feature can be really beneficial for you. It can spare you some seconds by avoiding to type same command, maybe with different arguments in your terminal over and over again. Instead you can save the command that you want to execute in the configuration and reuse in the next execution. In addition to that, the configuration file is reusable, and can be distributed to other people, if you work in a team.
VSConan Extension will detect your workspace as conan workspace, if it contains a conanfile.py or conanfile.txt, and will a show dialog box as following
If you choose yes, VSConan will generate a default configuration file in your workspace to start with.
If you want to configure your workspace manually, we also provide you possibility to create a default configuration file using VS Code command VSConan: Create Workspace Configuration (JSON).
Currently supported conan command for configuration file:
- create
- install
- build
- source
- package
- export-pkg
The default configuration file can be seen as following. You can extend the list of each command to have different name, description, user, channel and many other details.
{
"python": "python",
"commandContainer": {
"create": [
{
"name": "create",
"description": "Create command",
"detail": "Create command detail",
"conanRecipe": "conanfile.py",
"profile": "default",
"user": "",
"channel": "",
"args": []
}
],
"install": [
{
"name": "install",
"description": "Install command",
"detail": "Install command detail",
"conanRecipe": "conanfile.py",
"installFolder": "install",
"profile": "default",
"user": "",
"channel": "",
"args": []
}
],
"build": [
{
"name": "build",
"description": "Build command",
"detail": "Build command detail",
"conanRecipe": "conanfile.py",
"installFolder": "install",
"buildFolder": "build",
"packageFolder": "package",
"sourceFolder": "source",
"args": []
}
],
"source": [
{
"name": "source",
"description": "Source command",
"detail": "Source command detail",
"conanRecipe": "conanfile.py",
"installFolder": "install",
"sourceFolder": "source"
}
],
"pkg": [
{
"name": "pkg",
"description": "Package command",
"detail": "Package command detail",
"conanRecipe": "conanfile.py",
"installFolder": "install",
"buildFolder": "build",
"packageFolder": "package",
"sourceFolder": "source"
}
],
"pkgExport": [
{
"name": "pkg_export",
"description": "Package export command",
"detail": "Package export command detail",
"conanRecipe": "conanfile.py",
"installFolder": "install",
"buildFolder": "build",
"packageFolder": "package",
"sourceFolder": "source",
"args": []
}
]
}
}VSConan: Create Global Configuration (JSON)
Command to create global configuration file in your home directoryVSConan: Open Global Configuration (JSON)
Open the global configuration file in editorVSConan: Create Workspace Configuration (JSON)
Create workspace configuration fileVSConan: Open Workspace Configuration (JSON)
Open the workspace configuration file in the editor
Detailed release notes are available here.
See the contribution guidelines for ideas and guidance on how to improve the extension.
See Code of Conduct.