WebWorkbench VS plugin compiles our SCSS but wwcmd.exe does not

Howdy,

We're using version 3.2.1144.23109 of the Visual Studio plugin, and the latest nightly build (2014-02-04) of the command line utility.

The Visual Studio plugin compiles our Sass with no issues, but wwcmd.exe doesn't appear to want to output anything. It simply spits out a bunch of deprecation warnings (not errors) and one warning, and then exits with code 3, without producing any CSS output.

We get the same deprecation warnings and warnings in Visual Studio, but the plugin generates the CSS output.

I've attached the output of the command line utility. If you're able to provide an email address, I'll be happy to supply the Sass files that we're using, but I don't want to post them publicly.

Thanks,
Anthony

Hi Anthony,

You can email these through to us at support at mindscape.co.nz

Jeremy

Hi Jeremy,

Done. Hope the input and expected output helps.

Thanks,
Anthony

Hi Jeremy,

It's almost like there's some sort of strict mode which we can't disable via wwcmd.exe – is there a flag we can pass to the command line that would turn off this 'strict mode'?

Thanks,
Anthony

Yep, good analysis and thanks for sending through the files to repro this. The problem is we are getting back warnings which are being treated as errors. These are not fatal in the integrated version but were being treated as fatal in the command line tool. Im adding a new option to override this behaviour and allow you to ignore any errors reporting and progress with generation if possible. This will be merged in early next week and Ill update you once this is available in the nightlies.

Jeremy

Hi Jeremy,

Thanks - that's great news, though if I may make a suggestion, it would be great to have three levels on the setting:

• Strict mode: Any warning or error would result in no output being generated and wwcmd.exe exiting with a non-zero code
• Ignore warnings mode: Warnings and deprecation warnings would not affect the output, but any errors would cause wwcmd.exe to exit with a non-zero code
• Ignore everything mode: Silent failures for all critical errors - it's possible that this would result in no output being generated

Would you be looking to expose the setting via the Visual Studio web workbench settings, perhaps storing the value in the project file as item metadata? (There is a reason that I ask which will become clear when we are able to get this working.)

Thanks,
Anthony

The original change has now been merged in and this will be available in the next nightly build. You can now use the /f command line option to force output so this is equivalent to your "ignore everything mode". I can look at having a setting for this but Ill need to have a look at if we can get warnings and errors separated consistently so Ill pop this on our backlog for future work.

Let me know if you run into any issues in generating output after using the new option once you are able to update.

Jeremy

Hi Jeremy,

You can now use the /f command line option to force output so this is equivalent to your "ignore everything mode".

Great stuff – I'll download this when the 20140210 build is available and we'll see if things are working as expected. In the case that there are errors, will wwcmd.exe just exit with code 0 but not generate any output? If so, this seems like a good step, as I should be able to catch the fact that there's no generated CSS with the remainder of our MSBuild script.

I can look at having a setting for this but Ill need to have a look at if we can get warnings and errors separated consistently so Ill pop this on our backlog for future work.

Do you guys have a public roadmap/backlog for Web Workbench?

Thanks,
Anthony

Yes it will currently just continue regardless of if there is output but Ill look at adding in an error code if there is no output (e.g. zero bytes would be written to the .css file).

Our public backlog is managed through the feature requests: http://www.mindscapehq.com/thinktank/product/29. We dont have a roadmap as such for the product, its driven by feedback and the feature requests currently.

Jeremy

Hi Jeremy,

Yes it will currently just continue regardless of if there is output but Ill look at adding in an error code if there is no output (e.g. zero bytes would be written to the .css file).

That seems like the best way for the moment. If the /f switch generates CSS, that's great and we can assume that only non-fatal errors/warnings were presented. If no CSS is generated, it's safe to assume that a fatal error occurred, and it would be right for wwcmd.exe to return a non-zero exit code in those cases.

Regarding the third option that I mentioned above – just fail silently – that can be achieved through other methods. It would be great if the plugin front-end could include a new key – perhaps IgnoreWarnings and IgnoreErrors – in the project file, so that this was only being stored once and used in the same place. Something like this:

<Content Include="test.scss">
    <Compile>True</Compile>
    <Minify>True</Minify>
    <CompileStyle>Nested</CompileStyle>
    <DebugInfo>False</DebugInfo>
    <IgnoreWarnings>True</IgnoreWarnings><!-- Would make our life *so much* easier -->
    <IgnoreErrors>False</IgnoreErrors><!-- Not *really* required -->
</Content>

If IgnoreWarnings assumed a default value of True and IgnoreErrors assumed a default value of False (this is what we'd choose), we'd be able to decide whether or not to add certain command line options during the execution phase in MSBuild and, optionally, ignore the return/error/exit code of the command line utility.

I'm in the middle of writing a blog post on what we're doing with wwcmd.exe and MSBuild – I'd be happy to send you a draft version nearer the time, as with these changes, we'll be able to begin using a zero-touch deploy system using Jenkins, GitHub and wwcmd.exe, though the way we're doing it with MSBuild would mean that anything using MSBuild as it's build engine would be able to benefit.

Thanks for all the help so far.

Best regards,
Anthony

Yep sounds reasonable, Ill have a look into this next week for you :)

Jeremy

Ive added in a couple of changes now which will be in the next nightly build. Firstly we will return an error code (4) if there is no output when using a new /w option. /f will continue to execute regardless of output. The existing error code (3) will be returned if errors are present and either /w or /f are in use.

Ive also added in the IgnoreWarnings and IgnoreErrors properties to the persisted file settings as per above. Currently these are not surfaced in the settings UI as they have no function in the Visual Studio extension and we cant implement the behaviour to support these without making a number of changes to the compilation processes across the various compilers but they will be round-tripped on save if you modify them.

Jeremy