OTA vs NTA

[GabrielMoraru 39]

I want to create an IDE plugin like Copilot for Visual Studio or like Cursor.

I already started with OTA but now I wonder if it would have been better to go for NTA (Native Tools API). NTA seems more brittle but also more complete (and way less boiler plate code).

Opinions?

 

[dummzeuch 1657]

If the NTA offers advantages to your plugin you can always add that later. Whether that's the case depends on what your plugin does.

[GabrielMoraru 39]

I think the most important part for my plugin is the capability to interact with the compilation/debugging system so the AI can automatically check for compilation errors.

 

[dummzeuch 1657]

2 hours ago, GabrielMoraru said:

I think the most important part for my plugin is the capability to interact with the compilation/debugging system so the AI can automatically check for compilation errors.

If I remember correctly there is no way to access the compiler messages through the NTA because the output goes to a modified VirtualStringTree (but if you find one I would be very interested indeed). But the OTA might give you that access, I haven't checked.

[Kas Ob. 147]

33 minutes ago, dummzeuch said:

If I remember correctly there is no way to access the compiler messages through the NTA because the output goes to a modified VirtualStringTree

I remember i already shared here in the forum a way to hook compiler messages, not OTA nor NTA, but good old fashion hooking.

 

3 hours ago, GabrielMoraru said:

interact with the compilation/debugging system

interacting might be hard to very hard to pin, but getting compiler message(s) is doable, well, tested on few old IDEs, up to XE8, if that will help then i can search for that fun project and try to adjust it for you.

[GabrielMoraru 39]

10 hours ago, dummzeuch said:

If I remember correctly there is no way to access the compiler messages through the NTA because the output goes to a modified VirtualStringTree (but if you find one I would be very interested indeed). But the OTA might give you that access, I haven't checked.

The documentation claim that the new API (since Delphi 11) allows access to the compiler messages. 
I am working on this... but slowly as the weekend is gone... 😞 

 

> well, tested on few old IDEs, up to XE8, if that will help then i can search for that fun project and try to adjust it for you.

That would be interesting to see since I will have to make it work also for users that do not have the new OTA API (Delphi 11)
Thanks 🙂

Edited 12 hours ago by GabrielMoraru