The Eclipse Theia Community Release 2024-05

We are happy to announce the sixth Eclipse Theia community release “2024-05”, version 1.49.x!

New to Eclipse Theia? It is the next-generation platform for building IDEs and tools for the web or desktop, based on modern state-of-the-art web technologies. For more details, please refer to this article and visit the Theia website.

The Theia project also releases a product, the Theia IDE. The Eclipse Theia IDE is a modern and open IDE for cloud and desktop aimed at end users. The Theia IDE is based on the Theia platform. For more details, see the Theia IDE website.

In contrast to the monthly releases, community releases are provided every quarter by the Theia project. A dedicated release branch allows contributors to harden and even hotfix a community release. Finally, third-party technologies, such as Eclipse GLSP or CDT Cloud, select the community release as a compatibility anchor, i.e. they provide versions that are compatible with a specific community release. Learn more about the advantages of the Theia community release and visit the Theia release page.

Let’s dive into some highlights on the road to this sixth Theia community release!

Highlights of the Theia 2024-05 community release

This community release is the result of four months of development. Therefore, the 2024-05 release contains the improvements that were added in the Theia releases 1.46, 1.47, 1.48, and 1.49, which is a total of 239 pull requests. Let’s look at some highlights!

Dev-Container Support

Theia 1.49 introduces initial support for Development Containers, allowing you to specify a Docker container that sets up the development environment. This feature simplifies the setup of developer workspaces. Theia will start the defined container and automatically connect to it, streamlining the development process.

Support ‘browser-only’ Theia

Theia 1.46 added initial support for “browser-only” Theia applications, allowing them to be executed entirely in the browser without a backend. This feature is ideal for applications that do not require specific backend services, significantly reducing hosting efforts and costs.

Upgrade Monaco Dependency

Theia 1.47 upgraded the embedded Monaco Editor to version 1.83.1. This brings numerous improvements, including resizable content hovers, enhancing the user experience in the default text editor.

Secondary Window Support for Text Editors

Theia 1.48 added support for detaching editors from the main window, allowing users to create custom workbench layouts across multiple monitors. This extends existing support for secondary windows to the default code editor.

Dirty Diff Peek View

Theia 1.49 introduces the Dirty Diff Peek View, enabling users to navigate and preview unsaved modifications directly within the editor. This feature enhances code review and editing workflows.

Notebook Editor Improvements

Theia 1.48 improved and stabilized notebook editor support, offering a dynamic workspace where files can be opened with executable cells and rich, interactive outputs. This feature is particularly embraced by the popular Python extension for Notebooks.

Splash Screen Support for Electron

Theia 1.49 supports showing an optional splash screen during startup, which can be easily enabled and customized for custom tools or IDEs based on Theia.

Enhanced Extension and Plugin Installation

Theia 1.47 introduced a new command line parameter --install-plugin to install plugins directly, and the ability to install VS Code extensions from the explorer view by right-clicking a .vsix file.

Metrics Endpoint for Performance Analysis

Theia 1.48 added an enhancement for performance analysis when running in Electron, allowing access to the /metrics endpoint without requiring a token, providing valuable insights into the application’s operation.

These were just some selected highlights from the latest Theia community release, but there is much more!

The 2024-05 release also ensures compatibility with the latest VS Code extension API. As you might already know, you can use VS Code extensions in Eclipse Theia applications, enabling you to enhance your Theia-based application with features from a vast ecosystem of extensions.

Please check out the monthly release announcements of Theia to read more about the developments in the 2024-05 release. We are looking forward to the next Theia community release in August 2024!

If you are interested in building custom tools or IDEs based on Eclipse Theia, EclipseSource provides consulting and implementation services for Eclipse Theia as well as for web-based tools in general. We are happy to announce that we provide a new Eclipse Theia online training that you can conduct anytime, anywhere. It provides you and your team with a jump start for the development of your own custom solutions based on Eclipse Theia extensions.

Furthermore, if you want to extend Theia with features, EclipseSource provides sponsored development for Theia, too. Finally, we provide consulting and support for hosting web-based tools in the cloud. Get in contact with us, to discuss your use case!