Debug: contribute a start view

Hi 👋 VS Code dev here,

Last milestone we have introduced a Start View for debugging. More about this can be found here https://github.com/microsoft/vscode/issues/84677

Using the context key debugUx which can have values simple or default any extension can contribute a view to the debug start experience. Thus I am proposing that python considers contributing a view that can improve the start experience for new users not familar with python debugging. I am not a python expert but I suspect that there are quite some python specific actions which could be useful for new users.

If you think this is a good idea we can also work on fine tuning this start experience. We would also need to check for context keys of active editor to only show the view when the user has a python file opened.

For reference here’s a picture how the debug start view looks now for python

fyi @qubitron @DonJayamanne

[isidorn]

@luabud great feedback, let me try to answer those:

1. Displaying options in the view is not something we usually do inside VS Code. I understand that using the quick pick to present the options in the middle of the screen might be strange at first, however we follow this pattern across vscode. For example clicking on the status bar to choose a language. Downside of using the quick pick is that it is usually visually far away, however I believe it gets the job done, especially once users get used to it. My point is: I would not change this at the moment
2. It makes sense to add information like that to the start view. For example if we allow extensions to contribute buttons, Python could contribute a button to the start view “Interperter NAME”. Since it is a button user would more easily click on it than on the status bar. Clicking on the button the user would choose the interperter using the good old quick pick
3. The arguments passing: there are always two alternatives, build a UX for it or help users add arguments in the launch.json. This is a bit already covered by “To Further Configure …” sentence. We can tune that sentence to add something like: “For example to add arguments”. An alternative is that Python would add some python specific command. However I personally think that for arguments users should understand launch.json, and we should help them a bit here.

Let me know if this makes sense. And let me know if you are aware of other pain points users are hitting when setting up debugging. What we do depends also on what things we want to cover and we should not clutter the view at the end.

fyi @weinand aslo @connor4312 and @roblourens for potential ideas on how we could improve the start view also for Node

[isidorn]

Ok great. So it seems like adding additional commands / buttons in the start view is the way to go here. I will also initiate discussion with some other debug extension authors to get their feedback. In this milestone we want to identify what solution would be benefitial for most extensions, and next milestone we will probably do it.

@connor4312 sounds good, let’s continue the discussion in that call @luabud as for the activation problem I have created this issue with a suggestion how to fix https://github.com/microsoft/vscode-python/issues/9557