Task Explorer X64

[Sandi Loisel]

IMPORTANTNOTE: This extension has surpassed where I was ever going to take it, and the time that ended up going into it were more than I ever intended. Considering a pay scheme (cheap, e.g. $10 - $20), with free usage up to the # of to-be-determined number of parsed tasks. Note the license, this codebase is NOT permitted to be copied or distributed without my permission.

Provides a view in either (or both) the SideBar and/or Explorer that displays all supported tasks organized into a treeview, with parent task file nodes, grouped nodes, and project folders (convenient for large multi-root workspaces). Tasks can be opened for view/edit, executed, and stopped, among other things for specific task types, for example NPM file nodes support common npm command(s) (i.e. 'install') via context menu.

Note that the glob pattern "**/node_modules/**" is applied by default to the excludes list in all cases. Using the exclude configuration can greatly improve performance in large workspaces if configured correctly.

Apache Ant uses an .xml file extension, the setting globPatternsAnt can be used to specify other file names other than [Bb]uild.xml to include as ant files so that all xml files do not need to be searched (slowing down tree refreshes in large workspaces or project with a large number of various xml files). The setting defines a file pattern or an array of file patterns to include using Glob Patterns or a valid File URI, for example:

Note that the glob pattern "**/[Bb]uild.xml" is applied by default to the Ant includes list in all cases. If you don't include the asterisked glob pattern **/ first in the string, files in sub-folders will not be found.

In the same way as for Ant tasks, Bash scripts without extensions can be configured to be found by the Bash Task Provider by using glob patterns in the same way, with the globPatternsBash setting:

By default, a custom parser is used to locate Ant and Gulp tasks in respective files. This may be fine in most cases, but in cases where the script and/or build files become complex, or there is something in the file that was not coded into the parser, you can use the ant and gulp programs themselves to find their own tasks. Note however that turning this on has a negative performance impact when refreshing and providing tasks to the VSCode Task Host.

EXPERIMENTALThe Groups With Separator option is simply an extra level of task groupings that can be made based on a configured separation character in the script name. This option can be turned on/off with the Group With Seperator option in Settings, the default is OFF. The default separator is a dash ("-").

For example, consider 10 npm tasks, 5 of which all start with the string dev-, 5 of which start with the string prod-. Prior to Version 1.23, this would create 10 individual task nodes within the main npm task node in the task tree:

By enabling the Group With Separator option in Settings and setting the Group Separator to a dash ("-") two new grouped nodes would be created underneath the main npm node, one called dev and the other called prod. Each of these two sub-nodes of course would contain the respective dev- and prod- scripts/tasks, minus the prepended group name:

All other tasks are internally provided. Workspace tasks are detected by VSCode in all cases. However, NPM tasks are detected only if the setting 'Npm -> Auto Detect' is turned on in VSCode Settings. By default this is turned on, but if NPM tasks are not displaying, please check this setting, also check the setting that turns npm package management off in favor of Yarn 'Npm -> Package manager'. A future release will contain internally provided NPM and Yarn tasks. Note these tasks are still displayed in the Task Tree, just not "provided" by this extension.

Bash/sh scripts in Windows will have the shell executable automatically set to a bash shell (if the default shell set in VSCode is not bash). The shell executable used can be set in Settings using the pathToBash setting. If there is no value set in Settings, and Git Bash exists at the default installation installation, Git Bash will be used (MinGW). If Git Bash does not exist at the default install location, it is assumed the the path to bash.exe is part of the system PATH variable. If you experience errors running Bash scripts in Windows, please check these items.

For debugging or curiosity, a report can be generated listing all parsed components and the properties found. You can generate a report in the explorer context menus using the Task Explorer: View Parsing Report menu item.

Any extension that implements TaskProvider (specifically it's provideTasks method) can add it's tasks to the Task Explorer tree. To register an external provider with Task Explorer, follow these steps:

I have Sysinternals Process Explorer installed as the system's task manager (Win7 64). Since half of the metrics for anything started as service and processes started under other user accounts are either silently missing or shown wrong, I would like to run Process Explorer as administrator by default.

Selecting the appropriate item from the menu after failing to perform an action on a process or wondering why some metric is not at all plausible (e.g. no I/O happening when the disk is very obviously reading/writing gigabytes of data, such as during a system backup operation) certainly does "work", but is a recurring, major inconvenience.

The Run as Administrator checkbox in file properties works for tools that you launch by clicking on an icon or a launcher (such as e.g. Autoruns) although it triggers UAC in a sheer stupefying manner every time.

I understand this is a "Feature" of the super smart Windows security system that cannot be avoided other than by turning off UAC completely, which frankly is the second most stupid design decision I've seen in my life.

The bigger problem I'm facing, however, is that enabling said checkbox for Process Explorer will disable the task manager. Ctrl-shift-ESC shows a busy cursor for a fraction of a second and doesn't seem to do anything else. Selecting "Task Manager" from the context menu on the task bar shows an alert stating that higher privilegues are needed to complete this operation (duh, that's exactly what the user is asking for!). The secure attention sequence brings up the lock screen. Clicking on "Task Manager" there does nothing.

Unchecking the checkbox makes Process Explorer work seamlessly again, but it (unsurprisingly) runs as normal user.

Apparently, the Windows guys are concerned that some malware that has already completely subverted the system to a point where it can bypass the secure attention sequence might be able to launch a program as administrator. Good grief.

Basically you're done here, press OK in the main Create Task window. The Process Explorer will start minimized with highest privileges once you log on. You can adjust rest of the settings to your preference, for example makethis task run when computer is run on battery (useful for laptops).

If it is needed to run the task on demand, you'll need to set it begin At task creation/modification at step 4. Also on the Settings tab, check the Allow task to be run on demand. The rest options should be the same.

Go to the properties for this shortcut and add the /t option. This tells Process Explorer to run as an administrator. I also use /e option which automatically bypasses the EULA nag that the tools author hates but was forced by the lawyers to add. So, my shortcut looks like this:

Finally, within Process Explorer, check "Hide When Minimized" from the Options menu. Now, when you close the window, Process Explorer will disappear to the system tray. Ctrl+Shift+Esc (or any other shortcut to Task Manager) will reopen your existing (Administrator) Process Explorer instance.

When I click on the icon on the taskbar it opens the Dropbox app panel rather than file explorer. This was an issue for me a few years ago too but there was an option to disable or change it back. This option in the preferences has now disappeared.

In case you're talking about the first icon, then that'd be perfectly normal. When you click on the first icon, on the pop-up window, you should have a little folder like icon on the top, that'll re-direct you to your Dropbox folder on the File Explorer. Have you tried that?

As for the second icon, you should have that on your desktop, or taskbar (depending if you chose to pin it there, or not), and that will directly take you to your Dropbox folder, when clicking on it.

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Now all I get is the dropbox app window that shows my last few files accessed. I understand that there is a folder button at the top of that menu that will take me to file explorer. My issue is, I do this dozens of times day, but moving the curser and clicking again on another icon is inefficient. Has the app lost this functionality? It has been there since I started using the software in 2014.

One thing that annoys me no end about Windows is the old sharing violation error. Often you can't identify what's holding it open. Usually it's just an editor or explorer just pointing to a relevant directory but sometimes I've had to resort to rebooting my machine.

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