VSIX README handling in Theia when manually extracting vsix

[tmirza]

I’m experimenting with adding VS Code extensions to my custom Theia IDE.

When I install a .vsix from Open VSX or using Theia’s download:plugins, the extension’s README displays fine in the Extensions view, even though the .vsix content has the typical extension/README.md structure.

However, when I manually extract a .vsix into the plugins/ folder, Theia loads the extension code but fails to show the README content on selection of extension in built-in extensions.

Is it known limitation or I need to do something different during packing and unpacking a vsix?

p.s. If I copy README.md to root of my extracted extension then it appears fine.

[tmirza]

I have figured out the problem. It seems issue with vsce version. My current vsce version 3.6.2, when I package my extension as vsix, puts my README.md as readme.md inside the extension folder. I see this output of the vsce package command:

vsce package --no-dependencies
 INFO  Files included in the VSIX:
innexis-theme-1.1.0.vsix
├─ [Content_Types].xml 
├─ extension.vsixmanifest 
└─ extension/
   ├─ EXPORT.yml [0.3 KB]
   ├─ LICENSE.txt [0.45 KB]
   ├─ package.json [0.79 KB]
   ├─ readme.md 
   ├─ assets/
   │  └─ iX.png [11.12 KB]
   ├─ dist/
   │  └─ .gitignore [0.06 KB]
   └─ themes/
      ├─ iX-dark-color-theme-deep-blue.json [57.79 KB]
      ├─ iX-light-color-theme.json [56.47 KB]
      └─ Backup/
         └─ custom_colors.json [2.56 KB]

Whereas, if I install the vsce npm package version 2.15.0 and then run it like below, I see the README.md inside the extension and everything works perfectly fine.

 ./node_modules/vsce/vsce package 
WARNING: A 'repository' field is missing from the 'package.json' manifest file. 
Do you want to continue? [y/N] y 
DONE 

It seems either newer versions of vsce (3.6.2) expect the README in a different format, or it is a bug in that version

[msujew]

Hey @tmirza,

thanks for looking into it, this is an unknown bug. The different casing (README.md vs readme.md) quickly led me to the culprit of the issue. See #16376 for a fix. You can expect this to work correctly in the next Theia version :)