Monaco Language Client & VSCode WebSocket Json RPC
Repository for NPM module to connect Monaco editor with language servers and NPM module which implements communication between a jsonrpc client and server over WebSocket.
Click here for a detail explanation how to connect the Monaco editor to your language server.
- Monaco Language Client & VSCode WebSocket Json RPC
Latest Important Project Changes
May 2023 (v6.0.0)
Updated to monaco-vscode-api 1.78.5 and therefore retired MonacoServices. It is replaced by initServices that makes configration of services exposed by monaco-vscode-api handy and still allows the definition of own services as outlined here and these can be passed as userServices in initServices.
April 2023 (v5.0.0)
Both libraries no longer export code from other libraries (vscode-jsonrpc, vscode-languageclient and vscode-languageserver-protocol).
September 2022 (v4.0.0)
All code has been transformed to esm and npm packages are now of type module. cjs bundles are no longer available.
The monaco-converter has been removed.
June 2022 (v2.0.0)
monaco-vscode-api was created by CGNonofr and this library is now based on it and the old implementation was removed.
We added the independent vscode-ws-jsonrpc as sub-package into this repository.
May 2022 (v1.0.0)
From release 1.0.0 onward the project switched to npm workspaces. We no longer require yarn, lerna and webpack. Mostly therefore the list of devDependencies is substantially shorter. All code has been moved to ./packages directory.
As before the library code is just compiled with the TypeScript compiler and the library is now packaged with npm. The need for bundling does no longer exist for the example. The compiled code is either executed by node or the web/client related code/pages are served with vite.js. We added a verification example for the web client example using webpack.
The default and protected branch is now main.
Using monaco-languageclient
monaco-languageclient runs a postinstall script when you install the dependencies in your project. If you re-run npm install this script is not invoked again.
Why? This is a change in monaco-vscode-api that adds back monaco-editor code that was removed during bundling/threeshaking. See the detailed explanation here.
Monaco-editor compatibility table
The following table describes which version of monaco-languageclient and monaco-vscode-api are compatible with a specific version of monaco-editor. The listing starts with version 2.0.0 because monaco-vscode-api was introduced for the first time.
Important: Due to the monaco-treemending mentioned above, it is mandatory you use the correct monaco-editor version. This is defined by peerDependency in monaco-vscode-api
| monaco-languageclient | monaco-vscode-api | monaco-editor | comment |
|---|---|---|---|
| 6.0.1 | 1.78.6 | 0.37.1 | Released 2023-05-12 |
| 6.0.0 | 1.78.5 | 0.37.1 | Released 2023-05-04 |
| 5.0.1 | 1.76.6 | 0.36.1 | Released 2023-04-05 |
| 5.0.0 | 1.76.6 | 0.36.1 | Released 2023-04-04 |
| 4.0.3 | 1.69.13 | 0.34.1 | |
| 4.0.1 | 1.69.12 | 0.34.1 | |
| 4.0.0 | 1.69.10 | 0.34.0 | |
| 3.0.1 | 1.69.9 | 0.34.0 | |
| 3.0.0 | 1.69.0 | 0.34.0 | |
| 2.1.0 | 1.67.20 | 0.33.0 | monaco-editor and vscode compatible again |
| 2.0.0 - 2.0.2 | 1.68.4 | 0.33.0 | monaco-editor and vscode incompatible |
Getting started
Dev environments
On your local machine you can prepare your dev environment as follows. At first it is advised to build everything. From CLI in root of the project run:
git clone https://github.com/TypeFox/monaco-languageclient.git
cd monaco-languageclient
npm i
# Cleans-up, compiles and builds everything
npm run buildOr, use a fresh dev environment in Gitpod by pressing the code now badge above.
Scripts Overview
The main package.json contains script entries applicable to the whole workspace like watch, build and lint, but it also contains shortcuts for launching scripts from the packages. See some examples:
# Build only monaco-languageclient
npm run build:client
# Build only vscode-ws-jsonrpc
npm run build:vscode-ws-jsonrpc
# Build main examples
npm run build:example:mainExamples
There are a couple of different examples that demonstrate how the monaco-languageclient can be used :
-
The server example located in ./packages/examples/main/src/server runs a Node.js Express app where web sockets are used to enable communication between the language server process and the client web application. The language server can be started as internal or external process.
-
The client example located in ./packages/examples/main/src/client contains the client web app which connects to the language server therefore requires the node server app to be run in parallel.
-
The langium-web-worker-language-server example located in ./packages/examples/main/src/langium contains both the language client and the langauge server implementation running in a web worker. They communicate via
vscode-languageserver-protocol/browserinstead of a web socket used in the server/client examples. -
The browser example located in ./packages/examples/main/src/browser demonstrates how a language service written in JavaScript can be used in a Monaco Editor contained in a simple HTML page. This example can now be considered legacy as the web worker option eases client side language server implementation and separation.
-
The react-client example located in ./packages/examples/main/src/react contains the React client. It does the same as the regular client example but inside a React Functional Component.
-
The angular-client example is now found in its own repository
Hint: Most client examples now share common code to reduce the amount of redundant code.
Verification
-
The webpack verification example located in ./packages/verify/webpack demonstrates how bundling can be achieved with webpack. You find the configuration here: webpack.config.js.
-
The vite verification example located in ./packages/verify/vite demonstrates how bundling can be achieved with vite. There is no configuration required.
Example usage
Start the Vite dev server. It is assumed you ran the build as described in Getting Started:
npm run devVite serves all client code at localhost. You can go to the index.html and navigate to all client examples from there. You can edit the client example code directly (TypeScript) and Vite ensures it automatically made available.
If you want to change the libries and see this reflected directly, then you need to run the watch command that compiles all TypeScript files form both libraries and the examples:
npm run watchFor the client or the client-webpack examples you need to ensure the server example is running:
# start the express server with the language server running in the same process.
npm run start:example:server
# alternative: start the express server with language server running in the external process.
npm run start:example:server:extFor everything else Vite is sufficient. If you want to reach the verification examples from the vite dev server index page you need to run the following additional http-servers beforehand (this is also indicated on the page itself):
# Serve the webpack verification example on http://localhost:8081
npm run start:verify:webpack
# Serve the vite verification example on http://localhost:8082
npm run start:verify:viteVSCode integration
You can as well run vscode tasks to start and debug the server in different modes and the client.
Troubleshooting
General
If you use monaco-languageclient make sure you have a version of monaco-editor installed in your project that is compliant with monaco-languageclient and its peer dependency monaco-vscode-api.
Ensure monaco-editor and monaco-languageclient are imported before you do any monaco-editor intialization. This ensures monaco and vscode (from monaco-vscode-api) are imported beforehand. This is for example done like this in all examples contained in this repository.
Volta
There are Volta instructions in the package.json files. When you have Volta available it will ensure the exactly specified node and npm versions are used.
monaco-editor-core
Originally monaco-languageclient was dependent on monaco-editor-core, but we changed this with version 1.0.0. If your project requires to use monaco-editor-core and you want to stay compatible with 1.0.0 of monaco-languageclient you can install monaco-editor-core as monaco-editor:
npm install monaco-editor@npm:monaco-editor-coreOr if you are using Webpack you can alternatively add this alias to its config:
resolve: {
alias: {
// This doesn't pull any languages into bundles and works as monaco-editor-core was installed
'monaco-editor$': 'monaco-editor-core$',
'monaco-editor/': 'monaco-editor-core/',
}
}If you use monaco-editor as dependency, but only want to have the content of monaco-editor-core than just only import:
import * as monaco from 'monaco-editor/esm/vs/editor/edcore.main.js';Especially, if you are using your own language server or define your own language it may be a good idea to only import the core of monaco-editor
@monaco-editor/react
Add the monaco-editor import at the top of your editor component file source:
import * as monaco from "monaco-editor";
import { loader } from "@monaco-editor/react";
loader.config({ monaco });
React
Typescript
Django
Laravel
Facebook
Microsoft
Google
Alibaba
D3
Tencent