A language server for inkle's Ink, that adheres to the Language Server Protocol (LSP). The project is in early stages.

Table of contents

• Getting Started
  • Installation
  • Running
  • Configuration
• Inklecate
  • macOS
  • Linux and other platforms
• License

Getting started

The server is written in TypeScript. It is mostly intended to be run via ink-vscode, but could be run with any client supporting LSP. You typically don't need to start the server yourself.

Installation

Install the package with npm or yarn.

$ npm install ink-language-server

$ yarn add ink-language-server

Running

If you want to run the server as-is, the entry point is located in lib/server.js.

$ node lib/server.js [--node-ipc|--stdio|--socket={number}]

Writing a client

Configuration Settings

The server supports three configuration settings.

• ink.mainStoryPath is path to the main ink file, used by Inklecate to build the story. This setting falls back to ./main.ink.
• ink.inklecateExecutablePath path to the inklecate, you would like to use if you don't want to use the bundled one. If inklecate is accessible in $PATH, you can just provide inklecate.
• ink.runThroughMono by default, this setting is false. You can force the server to use Mono by setting it to true. You can also specify an absolute path to your custom mono executable.

Compilation

After every successful compilation, the server will post a notification named inkWorkspace/didCompileStory, with the following parameters:

export interface SaveCompiledStoryParams {
    /** Uri of the current workspace (in which the compilation happened). */
    workspaceUri: string;

    /** Uri of the compiled story, a JSON file. */
    storyUri: string;
}

The type is exposed by the package, so you can simply import it in your code:

import { DidCompileStoryParams } from 'ink-language-server';

The server also expose the compileStory command, which can be use to trigger a full compilation. It takes a single parameter: a URI, which will most likely be the current file in the editor.

Internally, this URI will be used to infer which workspace/story the server should compile.

Preview

The server can take advantage of inklecate's play mode to provide an interactive preview. The client can start a preview by calling the play-story command; during the story run, numerous notifications will be sent:

• inkRuntime/text – the client should display the content as text;
• inkRuntime/tag – the client should display the content as tags;
• inkRuntime/choice – the client should display the content as a choice option;
• inkRuntime/prompt – the client should ask the user to select previoulsy displayed options;
• inkRuntime/endOfStory – the client should indicate that the story ended;
• inkRuntime/error – the client should prominetly display the runtime error.

The notifications sent with parameters are indicated below:

export interface RuntimeTextParams {
  text: string;
}

export interface RuntimeTagParams {
  tags: string[];
}

export interface RuntimeChoicesParams {
  choice: RuntimeChoice;
}

export interface RuntimeErrorParams {
  error: string;
}

Theses types are exposed by the package as well.

After receiving inkRuntime/prompt and gathering input from the user, the client can send the selected choice back to the server by calling the select-option, with the index of the selected option as parameter. The story will then continue to unfold until inkRuntime/endOfStory is sent.

Inklecate

The server is bundled with the latest version of Inklecate, built to run natively on Windows. If you plan to use the language server on another platform, there are a few things to know.

macOS

If the server detects that it's being intalled on macOS, it will try to download an additional native macOS binary. This optional download may fail for a wide range of reasons. If doesn't complete, you will be left with three options:

1. Download the binary archive yourself, extract it somewhere on your system and configure your language client to send its absolute path as the value of ink.inklecateExecutablePath.
2. Download the binary archive yourself and extract its content to <language-server-path>/vendor/.
3. Install a Mono runtime, the server will then use the Windows binaries and run them through mono.

Linux and other platforms

There are no prebuilt binaries for these platforms, so you will have to install the Mono runtime in order to run the server.

License

Ink Language Server is released under the MIT license. See LICENSE for details.

The Ink logo used in the header is the full property of inkle Ltd.