CodeEditor: Hinting and Completion

[darth-cheney]

Ace editor has a nice framework for making suggestions when we type. We need an API on the python side that could hook into that so that as we're typing the system can provide suggestions. Ideally we'd be able to specify callbacks to the constructor on the python side where it would call them with the current cursor position and current text buffer and get back a list of suggestions and send that up to the client side.

[dkrasner]

@braxtonmckee I am making decent progress with this today (although Ace docs on adding custom completions is somewhat sparse). The current set up allows you to define a custom completion func on the server side in cells.CodeEditor and when you do so the component knows to use it instead of the default Ace ones. Now do you want this custom completion to replace or complement the Ace ones or do you want a CodeEditor side option for either one? In the latter case, I could see if there is a way to make sure the the custom results come up first or always come up.

[braxtonmckee]

Cool! I think if the client side specifies a completion function, we should use that in lieu of the builtin one entirely. Also, it would be bad if the ace editor blocks on a round-trip with the server to show the autocomplete, so hopefully it can be async.

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On Wed, Mar 25, 2020 at 10:43 AM dkrasner ***@***.***> wrote: @braxtonmckee <https://github.com/braxtonmckee> I am making decent progress with this today (although Ace docs on adding custom completions is somewhat sparse). The current set up allows you to define a custom completion func on the server side in cells.CodeEditor and when you do so the component knows to use it instead of the default Ace ones. Now do you want this custom completion to replace or complement the Ace ones or do you want a CodeEditor side option for either one? In the latter case, I could see if there is a way to make sure the the custom results come up first or always come up. — You are receiving this because you were mentioned. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#97 (comment)>, or unsubscribe <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AB6OHBEQRO3MNOSDEQW6ZGTRJIKAHANCNFSM4K4PASZA> .

[dkrasner]

ok got it - this is what i have going implement right now

note, the way that ace bundles these completion functions it waits until all of them return, which in our case would include on waiting on the server. At this least this is what I see from their code and my initial tests

[dkrasner]

@braxtonmckee ok we have something working #106 - can be enhanced as needed