Variable viewer: Can you retain the webview context when hidden?

[Tyriar]

Testing #10170

I know this is an option for custom editors, if it's available to webview panels that would save reloading the whole webview when re-focused (at the cost of keeping the context in memory):

[rchiodo]

I believe we refresh on purpose. Storing context only works if the user hasn't executed anything between hiding and showing again.

[Tyriar]

You could keep the context and trigger a refresh when the webview is shown instead of recreating it completely?

[rchiodo]

Not sure what the difference would be? Less flashing?

[Tyriar]

Yeah, it should load about as fast as the built-in panels then and feel more smooth/integrated.

[sadasant]

I like the idea of less flashing! We'll circle back after triage.

[rebornix]

For refreshing, I also expect it does diffing and update incrementally instead of refreshing the whole page.

[Tyriar]

@rebornix related to that: #10221

[rchiodo]

For refreshing, I also expect it does diffing and update incrementally instead of refreshing the whole page.

The react data grid we use should already be doing this. There is only flashing when we hide the window.

[rchiodo]

This was done on purpose to prevent execution from happening while the window is hidden.

vscode-jupyter/src/webviews/extension-side/variablesView/variableViewActivationService.ts

Line 20 in e6f523d

webviewOptions: { retainContextWhenHidden: false }

We could try detecting if the view is visible or not in the refresh though, and then set it to a pending refresh for when it becomes visible again.

[rchiodo]

Whoops wrong issue closed.

[roblourens]

microsoft/vscode#165445