Are you looking to create a custom tool based on Eclipse Theia? Do you want to bundle existing features from the ecosystem but also extend the platform with your own domain-specific additions? Do you want to know about the basics of Eclipse Theia and learn more details about its extension capabilities? Then join this tutorial to provide a jumpstart to the development of Theia extensions!
Eclipse Theia is a platform to build web- and cloud-based tools. Compared to VS Code, it is more targeted to be the basis for the implementation of custom, even white-labelled tools. Theia’s architecture allows for more flexibility and adaptability. While Theia also supports the same plugin model as VS Code, it also provides a second more powerful mechanism, called Theia extensions.
In this tutorial, we will provide you with an introduction on how to extend Eclipse Theia using Theia extensions. We first provide you with an introduction on how to configure your own Theia product based on existing modules, as well as how to compile, launch and debug it. Based on this setup, we introduce the structure of Theia extensions and provide all necessary details on how to develop your own Theia-based product. More precisely, we will cover three example use cases in detail - a “hello world” extension, a view contribution and finally an integration with a backend service, e.g. to integrate external tools.
The tutorial will be hands-on including three exercise sessions for the respective topics. Our team of experts will guide you through the exercises, answer specific questions and provide individual support if required. We will provide you with setup instructions beforehand. As one of the major advantages of online tooling, the setup will be very minimal. Basic Typescript and Node.js knowledge is beneficial for participating in the exercises, but isn’t strictly required as we will provide links to introductions along with the setup instructions.
This tutorial provides you with a good overview of the development of Theia extensions and is therefore a perfect kick start for any project based on Theia. However, as 3 hours is certainly not enough to cover all individual usage scenarios and questions, we will schedule individual consulting sessions for all interested participants of the tutorial. In these sessions, our experts will answer domain- and project-specific questions or discuss with you the design of your first project based on Theia.
The consulting sessions are optional and included in the conference fee, as a special treat for the first virtual EclipseCon.
Comment for PC: We are aware that there is no CfP for tutorials. However, we still submit this as a tutorial, because we believe that the topic and format is perfect for a virtual conference. The submission is based on our commercial training offering that we developed, and successfully conducted online, even before the Covid19 crisis. Therefore we already have extensive experience in conducting this tutorial online. We would be fine with being scheduled outside of the main track, e.g. one day before or after the conference (before probably makes more sense). A split into 2 or 3 shorter sessions would be possible. If you dislike the idea of a tutorial, this could be transformed into a talk, as well.
To provide the participants with almost zero set-up for the hands-on part, we intend to use GitPod to host the developer workspaces. The usage will be for free in this scenario, but requires a Git or GitPod account. If the PC dislikes the usage of GitPod (it is a commercial tool based on open-source software), we can alternatively host the training using a custom Eclipse Che instance.
Finally, due to the virtual setup, we will join with a group of experienced trainers (intended number is 5) to answer any individual questions during the training and assist the participants during the exercises. This should help in a remote set-up, where you cannot just walk around to help people with the exercises.