redhat-developer / redhat-developer/vscode-java

Quick fixes do not provide good support for readonly files

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enhancement
Dominant language
TypeScript
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Forks
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Avg merge
20h 1m
Merged PRs (30d)
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Description

Description of issue

The Quick Fix menu in VS Code provides several options to fix common compiler errors, such as creating a missing method in a class.
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However, this menu can be misleading for users when the affected files are marked as readonly in VS Code using the files.readonlyInclude workspace setting.
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When a file is marked readonly, a Quick Fix option may still be presented to add a method or other class member to it. Selecting that option seems to have a couple of different possible behaviors:

  1. If the file is not open in an editor tab, the Quick Fix operation has no effect but presents no message to the user explaining why
  2. If the file is open in an editor tab, the Quick Fix operation will seem to apply the requested change, and the language server receives updated content for the file (meaning the red squiggle goes away). However, the updated content is not actually written to disk. Builds will fail with compilation errors. If the editor tab is closed, then the language server will refresh from the file on-disk and the red squiggle will return. Even though the changes are in-memory-only, the file does not show the white circle on the tab header indicating unsaved changes.
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Requested change

Change to a more intuitive behavior for the Quick Fix options:

  • Hide (or gray out) any Quick Fix options that would require changes to readonly files
  • Present a popup message to the user after the Quick Fix is selected explaining that it can't be used on readonly files

At the least, the Quick Fix should not make in-memory-only changes.

Software versions

VS Code: Tested on both 1.96.2 and 1.106.3
Java Extension: 1.50.0
OS: MacOS 15.6.1

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

First steps

  1. Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
  2. Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

Research direction

Start by tracing the Quick Fix menu and language-server handling for files matched by the VS Code files.readonlyInclude setting. Reproduce both the unopened and open-editor cases, then verify that fixes for readonly files are hidden or disabled, explain why they cannot run, and never leave in-memory-only changes.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
java, typescript, vscode
Domain
developer-experience, tooling
Issue type
Bug
Difficulty
4/5
Estimated time
3-5 days
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Mostly clear
Newbie friendliness
42/100

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