The Eclipse Theia Community Release 2024-08

We are happy to announce the seventh Eclipse Theia community release “2024-08”, version 1.52.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 seventh Theia community release!

Highlights of the Theia 2024-08 community release

This community release is the result of three months of development. Therefore, the 2024-08 release contains the improvements that were added in the Theia releases 1.50, 1.51, and 1.52, which is a total of 169 pull requests. Let’s look at some highlights!

Theia IDE Leaves Beta

With Theia 1.51, we officially launched Theia IDE, marking the end of its beta phase. We are pleased to announce that in its first month of general availability, the Theia IDE has achieved approximately 30,000 new downloads. These figures represent entirely new downloads and do not include updates from previous versions. For more details, see the Eclipse Foundation press release, the blog post, and the Theia IDE website.

Notebook Editor Improvements

Theia 1.50 brought substantial improvements to the notebook editor support, enhancing its stability and functionality. This feature provides a versatile workspace where users can work on executable content alongside diverse and interactive outputs, similar to tools like Jupyter Notebook.

Improved Handling of Links in Electron

Theia 1.51 introduced improved link handling in Electron mode. Links now open by default in external user browsers, enhancing security and usability.

Enhanced Upload Command

Theia 1.51 introduced an improved file upload command. The “Upload Files” option is now always visible in the browser, with intelligent placement of uploaded files based on the current selection.

Support for 256 Truecolor in Terminal

Theia 1.52 introduced support for 256 Truecolor in terminals, addressing the issue where terminals were limited to 8 colors. This enhancement ensures more accurate color representation in terminal outputs.

Codicon color and URI support for Terminals

Theia 1.52 introduced support for Codicon color and URI in terminal options. This enhancement allows terminal icons to use specific colors and URI paths, providing a more customizable and visually consistent terminal experience.

Improved VS Code Extension Support

Throughout these releases, Theia has continued to enhance its compatibility with VS Code extensions. With the 1.52.0 release, the supported version compatibility of VS Code extensions is now updated to 1.91.1, further expanding the range of available extensions.

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 (1.50, 1.51, 1.52) to read more about the developments in the 2024-08 release.

We are looking forward to the next Theia community release in November 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 such as the toolbar or the test framework, 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!