Root folders for projects

[sunix]

Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe.
At the moment, the devfile declares projects that are usually git projects. These git projects are actually git repository. In these git repos, it happens that projects to be loaded in an IDE are actually located in subfolders of the git repo.

For instance: https://github.com/redhat-developer-demos/quarkus-reactjs-postit-app should have node-frontend and quarkus-backend loaded as Project (Eclipse IDE terminology) or Workspace root (VSCode/Theia/Che terminology).

These projects or roots should be concidered and defined in the devfile.

Describe the solution you'd like
From eclipse-che/che#15347 (adapted to devfile 2)

Each projects defined in a workspace, would possibly have a list of folder that would be workspace roots of the Che workspace. /projects is the default one.

projects:

  - name: che-quarkus-demo
    git:
      location: 'https://github.com/sunix/che-quarkus-demo'
      branch: microservices
    roots: ['quarkus-backend', 'node-frontend']

  - name: nodejs-ex
    git:
      location: 'https://github.com/sclorg/nodejs-ex'

  - name: nodejs-ex-sunix
    git:
      location: 'https://github.com/sunix/nodejs-ex'
    roots: []

would add the 3 folders /projects/nodejs-ex, /projects/che-quarkus-demo/quarkus-backend, /projects/che-quarkus-demo/node-frontend as workspace root.

Of course if the user is using the command Add folder to workspace, the devfile of the workspace would need to be updated.

/projects/nodejs-ex-sunix is not added as a workspace root because of it has roots array empty.
/projects/nodejs-ex is added as a workspace root because it is the default behaviour if no roots element is defined.

  - name: nodejs-ex
    git:
      location: 'https://github.com/sclorg/nodejs-ex'

would be similar to

  - name: nodejs-ex
    git:
      location: 'https://github.com/sclorg/nodejs-ex'
    roots: ['.']

Describe alternatives you've considered
Using sparseCheckoutDirs, but user may want to keep the whole. sparseCheckoutDirs is useful for examples/samples repositories.

Additional context
Add any other context or screenshots about the feature request here.

[benoitf]

Hi Sun, what is the difference with eclipse-che/che#15347 ?

you don't want to use generic attributes in projects field ?

[sunix]

I would prefer to have that part of the devfile schema

[l0rd]

@sunix what's the use case for the empty project root:

  - name: nodejs-ex-sunix
    git:
      location: 'https://github.com/sunix/nodejs-ex'
    roots: []

The project gets cloned in /projects/ but the IDE ignores it?

[sunix]

@l0rd yes. It should not happen very often, but it is to clarify the behavior if it happens.

[l0rd]

I would not supporting this use case (maybe with an attribute?).

And when roots is not specified I would expect be equivalent to roots=[] and therefore to correspond to the top folder to be the workspace root.

Another comment is that having both roots and sparseCheckoutDir is confusing from a user point of view. I would add to this proposal the deprecation of sparseChekoutDir.

[sunix]

I would not supporting this use case (maybe with an attribute?).

And when roots is not specified I would expect be equivalent to roots=[] and therefore to correspond to the top folder to be the workspace root.

OK

Another comment is that having both roots and sparseCheckoutDir is confusing from a user point of view. I would add to this proposal the deprecation of sparseChekoutDir.

I don't think we should deprecate sparseCheckoutDir: these are doing different things and could be used together or not.
For git projects, sparseCheckoutDir is git related and maybe used for different reasons. roots would be related to the structure of your project.

• roots could be used for git projects with several components: for instance a git project with node-fronend folder and another quarkus-backend folder.
• sparseCheckoutDir are usually used in sample repos, where we want just to clone/retrieve a subfolder. For instance https://github.com/quarkusio/quarkus-quickstarts, we would want to clone only 1 folder.

[benoitf]

I think that for quarkus-quickstarts we mainly want to see one project in the IDE but having other quickstarts there could be helpful as well as you may want to open them
I also think it was a workaround waiting to have proper multi-root workspaces support.

[elsony]

Based on cabal discussion, we'll:

1. Remove sparseCheckoutDir from spec since we don't find a good use case for it.
2. roots will be a Che specific attribute since it is mostly for the UI