A VSCode Extension pack allows us to point users to a single extension and install all other extensions that we think are important for the modern Haskell IDE experience.
Before Release `language-haskell` 3.8.0, vscode-haskell (or Haskell on the Marketplace) forced a dependency on the extension vscode-haskell-syntax-highlighting. Every user had to install vscode-haskell-syntax-highlighting alongside vscode-haskell extension.
We dropped this explicit dependency during the migration to the new vscode-haskell-syntax-highlighting extension.
This allows users to freely choose which syntax highlighting extension to use, as was requested in Remove explicit dependency on Haskell Syntax Highlighting · Issue #407 · haskell/vscode-haskell · GitHub.
However, this raises new problems.
Firstly, the new vscode-haskell-syntax-highlighting extension needs to be installed separately, which might not be immediately clear to new users.
Secondly, as the extension is new, it isn’t as prominently listed as it should be, making it extra hard to find.
I propose, to add a new Haskell Extension Pack extension, which bundles vscode-haskell and vscode-haskell-syntax-highlighting.
In the future, we could add other extensions as well, such as GitHub - visortelle/haskell-spotlight: VSCode extension for Haskell · GitHub or GitHub - well-typed/haskell-debugger: A modern step-through debugger for GHC Haskell · GitHub.
I am raising this question to the community to gather some feedback on whether this sounds like a good idea and what extensions should be bundled.
If the feedback is positive, I am taking care of the implementation.
Link for further discussions: Create Haskell extension pack · Issue #1383 · haskell/vscode-haskell · GitHub