Improve elm-review support

[ahankinson]

elm-review currently looks in the project directory for its configuration, which means that it does not see a review folder. This is due to a hardcoded --config=. option for elm-review.

To improve support we should make this configurable.

Originally posted by @andipabst in #20 (comment)

[jfmengels]

Replying to @andipabst's original comment:

Regarding elm-review - I noticed the same thing you mentioned. Maybe we should either make the location configurable or try to autodiscover and store it in the project configuration?

I agree it should be configurable. The simplest would be to have a new settings field indicating the config path to use (if left empty, then don't provide a --config flag). It may be interesting to have multiple review configurations and to be able to quickly switch from one to the other (like the build/test configurations?) but I think that can come later.

For the compiler - if you introduce a error in the code and run the compiler you will see the compiler errors/warnings displayed in the tool window. Also not really what I would have expected from the tool, but that is what I could find from the code.

Most elm-review rules expect the code to be compiling, therefore the workflow I suggested back in the day was to show the compiler errors if any were detected, and to only run elm-review and show the review errors if there are no compiler errors. I think that's a good default, but in hindsight it's maybe not always applicable 100%, you may want to be able to run elm-review while there are still some compiler errors.

[ahankinson]

Thanks!

I'm guessing most people use some form of file watcher to automatically compile their project on changes. In my case, I just have a very simple IntelliJ run configuration that runs a command in the package.json file:

"scripts": {
    "develop": "chokidar 'src/**/*.elm' -c 'clear && elm make src/Main.elm --debug --output=dist/static/app.js'",
    "production:deploy": "./optimize.sh src/Main.elm dist/static/app.js dist/static/app.js"
 },

In which case the current compiler behaviour is redundant because I would automatically see the errors anyway, and don't have to execute a build directly. I'm guessing most other people use a build tool like elm-watch or elm-vite to do the same thing.

All that's to say that maybe the role of the elm compiler needs to change? Or the compiler should run automatically before running elm-review?

The simplest would be to have a new settings field indicating the config path to use (if left empty, then don't provide a --config flag)

This would be a per-project setting, right? I don't know enough about how the plugin is configured but I think it only has global settings in the Settings panel.

[lydell]

In which case the current compiler behaviour is redundant because I would automatically see the errors anyway, and don't have to execute a build directly. I'm guessing most other people use a build tool like elm-watch or elm-vite to do the same thing.

I use elm-watch, but I like being able to get all compilation errors for the current app in the bottom panel in my editor, where I can click each to jump to it. I can do that with elm-watch too, but not having to look at another window is peaceful somehow.

[ahankinson]

Does the elm compile step conflict with elm-watch?

Also related, does anyone know what the "Friendly messages" window is supposed to show?

[lydell]

Does the elm compile step conflict with elm-watch?

No. It runs with --output=/dev/null, btw:

intellij-elm/src/main/kotlin/org/elm/workspace/commandLineTools/ElmCLI.kt

Line 30 in 7d688a1

val params = (listOf("make") + filePathsToCompile + listOf("--output=/dev/null")).toTypedArray()

Also related, does anyone know what the "Friendly messages" window is supposed to show?

I have no clue, I never noticed that window until now.

[jfmengels]

I'm guessing most people use some form of file watcher to automatically compile their project on changes.

I don't, I like seeing them in the editor most of the time. Sometimes I run elm-test-rs with make --watch because I then also get compile errors for tests (which would be a separate area of improvement for the plugin btw).

This would be a per-project setting, right?

Yes, it would likely have to be.