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Symbols outline should be enabled for project with a TAGS file #1643
Description
Problem
I currently maintain a bunch of CoffeeScript codebases, all of them with Ctags-compatible files. To my surprise, looks like Code only enables the Symbols Outline for a select number of languages.
Proposal
Check for a TAGS/tags file in the current project directory, and if it exists then attach the Symbols Outline.
Prior Art (Optional)
No response
Activity
jeremypw commentedon Aug 20, 2025
It would be simple enough to add
text/x-coffeescriptto the mimetypes that cause the Ctags symbol pane to show. Other languages which are not compatible would need their own parser and pane but could be added in principle if there is enout demand.nohayproblema commentedon Aug 20, 2025
Interesting bit:
code/src/SymbolPane/C/CtagsSymbolOutline.vala
Line 65 in 03e1d8b
Universal Ctags already takes care of that, either through an actual parser or regex. I don't think incompatible languages should be a problem since the tool ignores them.
jeremypw commentedon Aug 20, 2025
Just tried this with a
.coffescriptfile with mime-typeapplication/vnd-coffescriptbut it does not generate any symbols (and does not look very C-like). What mime-types do you want to use the Ctags pane for?jeremypw commentedon Aug 20, 2025
Just downloaded an example
.tagfile but the filetype istext/plain. I guess we could look at the file extension to trigger the symbol pane instead.nohayproblema commentedon Aug 20, 2025
Currently https://github.com/preservim/tagbar/wiki#coffeescript snippet in my ctags config directory. It wonderfully works in Vim, which is the editor I have been using.
Mostly CoffeeScript, which currently lacks an LSP implementation and Ctags are the only sane way to navigate a big project. Though this enhancement benefits a lot of languages that are already implemented into Universal Ctags as parsers and optlib definitions.
What about trying to run ctags for files with a gtksourceview language-spec? Worst case scenario is the symbols panel shows empty, in which case it could default to getting out of the way (like it currently works today).
jeremypw commentedon Aug 20, 2025
We don't really want to create a symbol pane if the file is not compatible (i.e. does not generate any tags) because it will try to reparse the file every time it changes which wastes cpu. Sure, we could create the Ctags pane for all code text files and then hide it when there are no symbols but I am not sure that would be approved for merging.
jeremypw commentedon Aug 20, 2025
One possibility would be to add a "force" option which would allow the user create the symbol pane regardless.