Always visible progress notifications when running a subshell from PowerShell terminal

System Details

❯ & {"### VSCode version: $(code -v)"; "`n### VSCode extensions:`n$(code --list-extensions --show-versions | Out-String)"; "`n### PSES version: $($pseditor.EditorServicesVersion)"; "`n### PowerShell version:`n$($PSVersionTable | Out-String)"}
### VSCode version: 1.49.1 58bb7b2331731bf72587010e943852e13e6fd3cf x64

### VSCode extensions:
ACharLuk.easy-cpp-projects@2.0.0
ajshort.latex-preview@0.5.1
arthurwang.vsc-prolog@0.8.23
auchenberg.vscode-browser-preview@0.6.7
Darfka.vbscript@1.0.4
dbaeumer.vscode-eslint@2.1.8
donjayamanne.githistory@0.6.11
DotJoshJohnson.xml@2.5.1
eamodio.gitlens@10.2.2
eyhn.vscode-vibrancy@1.0.9
felixrieseberg.vsc-travis-ci-status@1.1.0
formulahendry.code-runner@0.11.0
GitHub.github-vscode-theme@1.1.5
GitHub.vscode-pull-request-github@0.20.0
GrapeCity.gc-excelviewer@3.0.40
ionutvmi.reg@1.0.1
James-Yu.latex-workshop@8.13.2
k--kato.docomment@0.1.18
kevinglasson.cornflakes-linter@0.5.1
mikestead.dotenv@1.0.1
mohsen1.prettify-json@0.0.3
MS-CEINTL.vscode-language-pack-de@1.49.1
ms-dotnettools.csharp@1.23.2
ms-ossdata.vscode-postgresql@0.3.0
ms-python.python@2020.9.112786
ms-vscode-remote.remote-containers@0.140.1
ms-vscode-remote.remote-ssh@0.55.0
ms-vscode-remote.remote-ssh-edit@0.55.0
ms-vscode-remote.remote-wsl@0.44.5
ms-vscode.cpptools@1.0.1
ms-vscode.powershell@2020.6.0
nobuhito.printcode@3.0.0
openhab.openhab@0.7.0
PleasedSkin.smalltalk@0.0.1
redhat.java@0.68.0
SimonSiefke.svg-preview@2.8.3
slevesque.vscode-autohotkey@0.2.2
tht13.html-preview-vscode@0.2.5
torn4dom4n.latex-support@3.2.0
twxs.cmake@0.0.17
VisualStudioExptTeam.vscodeintellicode@1.2.10
vscjava.vscode-java-debug@0.28.0
vscjava.vscode-java-dependency@0.13.0
vscjava.vscode-java-pack@0.10.0
vscjava.vscode-java-test@0.24.2
vscjava.vscode-maven@0.24.2
xaver.clang-format@1.9.0
yzhang.markdown-all-in-one@3.3.0
znck.grammarly@0.12.5


### PSES version:

### PowerShell version:

Name                           Value
----                           -----
PSVersion                      5.1.19041.1
PSEdition                      Desktop
PSCompatibleVersions           {1.0, 2.0, 3.0, 4.0...}
BuildVersion                   10.0.19041.1
CLRVersion                     4.0.30319.42000
WSManStackVersion              3.0
PSRemotingProtocolVersion      2.3
SerializationVersion           1.1.0.1

Issue Description

Steps to reproduce:

1. Open a PowerShell terminal
2. Type “powershell”, “wsl”, or something else
3. Now your terminal is responsive and waiting for user feedback, so …

Expected Behaviour

… I would expect the PS item in the bottom bar of VS Code to display any “idle” state …

Actual Behaviour

… Instead, it shows all the time a loading icon, which can be quite confusing because I already nest some subshells the whole day, and the whole time, a “busy” state is displayed in the bottom bar.

I think this behavior should be changed. Would it be possible to detect whether the process is waiting for the stdin, and if yes, disable the loading icon?

[rjmholt]

@SeeminglyScience and @corbob are on the money.

Basically if you start a native command, it becomes a subprocess. That command might be powershell.exe running interactively or it might be chkdsk.exe performing a long-running disk check non-interactively.

From the point of view of the parent process (the integrated console), there’s no difference. Both subprocesses have access to stdio and may or may not use it. It doesn’t get signaled to say “this subprocess is interactive”. It just gets all the output the subprocess sends to stdout, and a signal when it terminates, along with the exit code.

And in all cases, the subprocess synchronously blocks PowerShell’s pipeline thread, meaning the integrated console is busy. We’ve talked a few times about decoupling them, but then you lose all the ability to supplement the completions in the editor from the console, like with Register-ArgumentCompleter etc.

[corbob]

Thanks for the explanation. Why isn’t a second instance of the ISE used for the terminal? Then we could turn off the busy bar for the terminal instance only.

That would break the sharing of the session state. If you’re looking for just another terminal, you can add one from the drop down, you can even specify which shell to launch in vscode configuration.