Add option to ignore all notification messages from an extension

[xndyz]

Sometimes a plugin is broken but you don't want to spend the time to dig into it. It would be great if we could disable notifications from popping up with a user preference setting.

[octref]

Yes, additionally I hope there's an option or toggle that allows me to mute all notifications. New notifications increase the count in StatusBar but do not disturb the coding experience with the notification fly-out.

I guess @Fandy originally meant the same thing, "Add option to ignore all notification messages", not only "disable all notification from an extension".

[NatoBoram]

Now that would've been a wonderful solution to

• Repeatedly seeing "Thank you for using Intelephense. Upgrade now to access premium features." bmewburn/vscode-intelephense#631
• How to hide update notifications? codota/tabnine-vscode#867

[skuester]

I would also throw my hat into this ring, and ask you to consider preventing bad actors from abusing notifications for profit. Thus far, I've only seen this done in bmewburn/vscode-intelephense#615. But if more plugin authors begin to take this approach, I think you could see real harm done to the community.

I imagine that if VS Code's plugin ecosystem gains the reputation of being filled with spammy nagware that will fill your workspace with 30 ads every time you open your editor, the quality and trust of the ecosystem will evaporate.

[robclancy]

On top of this. It shouldn't even be allowed to abuse vscode to spam ads.

[SteveBenz]

Perhaps another way to approach this would be to show which extension originated the notification - perhaps even have a direct link from the notification to the extension's notification-related settings.

Bad actors can be blamed and uninstalled. Well-intentioned extensions that misunderstand their customers desires can avoid people rage-quitting.

[nikitavoloboev]

Please address this issue. I am coming from widely used ESLint VSCode extension which throws a notification whenever you open ANY JS project. And the maintainer of the extension @dbaeumer said that he won't address this issue directly. It's very annoying.

The issue

microsoft/vscode-eslint#727

[kaiserdan]

It doesn't have to be a sophisticated notification management interface like on Windows or macOS. Already being able to "mute" extension popups/notifications with a simple entry in the settings.json would solve the problem.

Example for what this could look like:

[kenny1983]

I am also 2000% in favour of this feature. I love VS Code but if it keeps allowing this popular trend that everything follows nowadays (i.e. software devs thinking their users would like to be nagged incessantly about every little thing and spammed with marketing crap) then I will stop using it, as @skuester said above.

[NatoBoram]

@nikitavoloboev It would be certainly better if I could answer you in microsoft/vscode-eslint#727, but @dbaeumer censored that issue, preventing anyone from commenting with a solution to this problem.

I think the best workaround right now is to disable the extension globally and only enable it in a project that uses it.

That workaround still doesn't solve bmewburn/vscode-intelephense#631, though.

On a more positive side note, I'm glad that some extension developers tackle the issue with more maturity and grace, see felangel/bloc#1962.

[steveberdy]

+1

I'm using the C# extension, and as I'm building dotnet projects, I get dozens of popups from OmniSharp, which is very disruptive.

[SaphirePhoenix]

+1

I have to dismiss the toast popup on a failed unit test before I can scroll to the error in the output terminal. This happens every run.

[kmenshov]

It's been almost 4 years and still no way to disable pop-up notifications? In a code editor, where being able to focus is the paramount? Guys, are you serious?

[lonix1]

Another reason: when debugging extensions in the "Extension Development Host" instance of vscode, those popups serve no purpose and it should be possible to disable them.

[perigoso]

Why must the notifications pop-up? 99% of the time i dont care about it, can they not just show up as a little icon?

The notifications right now are extremely annoying

[gardner]

VSCode throws up too many notifications. I don't want to break my focus and pay attention to a notification that I don't care about. Please consider non-intrusive notifications. One idea would be to have a small notification indicator that expands a notification window when clicked.

[NatoBoram]

@gardner That's what do-not-disturb does. This issue is specifically about muting an entire extension from the notification system. If you have gripes with do not disturb or with notifications in general, you might want to open a new issue or look at other existing issues.

[thelittleerik]

How the f is this still not addressed?

Why is this issue open for 5 years?
What's needed to be done?

PHP Intelephense is begging for donations in every goddamn week.
I don't want their premium and take a NO, once for an answer.

[codeams]

Install a plug-in to edit the IDE code like Custom CSS and JS (and a checksum fixer).

VSCode doesn't care about minimal or clean.

It's not worth waiting for something they've shown they don't care to invest in.

[zardoy]

Install a plug-in to edit the IDE code like Custom CSS and JS (and a checksum fixer).

Yeah, there is a way to ignore notifications from extensions by specifying message regex / severity or extension id for a long time, but it invoves vscode patching... though I think it will continue to be more powerful than builtin solution?

[daviddossett]

Hey folks, I did a quick exploration in the July iteration to see how we might handle this. The basic idea:

• Turn off notifications from a specific source (e.g. an extension or a specific category of built-in notifications) right from a notification itself.
• Manage notifications per source via a menu from the notification center

It could look like something like this. Thoughts?

CleanShot.2023-08-03.at.09.41.24.mp4

[codeams]

Hey folks, I did a quick exploration in the July iteration to see how we might handle this. The basic idea:

• Turn off notifications from a specific source (e.g. an extension or a specific category of built-in notifications) right from a notification itself.
• Manage notifications per source via a menu from the notification center

It could look like something like this. Thoughts?

CleanShot.2023-08-03.at.09.41.24.mp4

That looks perfect!
Would the on/off flags be included in the settings sync?

[IanMatthewHuff]

Just wanted to bring in some quick comments here on this issue from the VS Code Edu team.

We're looking for a solution where we can block all notifications except those provided by a set of extensions that we specify in settings. Our scenario involves student learners, and any notifications that they get can be distracting to their focus. For something like our python course, we would want to specify our own extension and perhaps something like the Pylance extension to be the only things that could show notifications. So this would be an allowlist (instead of a block list) and it would be in settings so that we could change it on a per course basis.

Would be a very helpful feature to us if it makes it into an iteration soon. Thanks!
https://github.com/microsoft/vscode-edu-extension/issues/578

[itpropro]

Any updates on this @daviddossett ? Your proposed solutions looks great and is exactly what I would imagined from such feature!

[exxocism]

#41767 (comment)
That's so cool man

[bpasero]

Made the changes as suggested in #41767 (comment) by @daviddossett to allow for disabling notifications by extension:

This behaves exactly like our existing "Do not disturb" mode but allows for more fine grained control. Notifications of Error severity will always show (same as with the global DND mode).

I am going with the same approach for how this state is persisted as with DND mode:

• application global (same across all profiles)
• machine specific (will not sync)

[Screenfeed]

Thanks 👍
Now all we need is to be able to mute notifications of Error severity and we're good.

[bpasero]

This can now be used from our insider builds: https://code.visualstudio.com/insiders/

[IanMatthewHuff]

@bpasero and @daviddossett . Quick question on the implementation here. Is this configurable from a setting? Or only via the notification dialog? For the vscode for education scenario we are looking to turn off confusing notifications that students are running into and preconfigure that in the student profile. However after playing with turning off notifications for an extension locally I wasn't seeing the value persisted either in the settings or in the globalState.json, so I'm not sure if we could pre-configure this.

[LiamMorrow]

This behaves exactly like our existing "Do not disturb" mode but allows for more fine grained control. Notifications of Error severity will always show (same as with the global DND mode).

Are there any plans to ever allow us to disable error notifications? The dotnet extension has been broken for months now with blazor apps, and spews out so many error notifications. I still want the extension overall, but it is super distracting getting hammered with notifications I cannot disable without going into devtools to temporarily hide all notifications.

[zardoy]

Are there any plans to ever allow us to disable error notifications?

There is seems to be logical reason for not letting you hide errors as error notifications should always be fixed. However you can still use extension like from #41767 (comment) to hide whatever you want (and my guess was right). As Jakub mentioned its possible to hide errors from PowerShell extension, so I think it would also be possible to solve your case as well. Anyway, I still personally don't understand what was the point of making it machine specific (even profile specific)? this is simply annoying...

[bpasero]

This feature is closely modelled after how our global "Do not disturb mode" works:

• only Info and Warning notifications can be ignored
• we store this state in storage and not settings

If you have interest in anything else, please open separate issues, thanks!

[niwazukihon]

I also want to be able to to hide error notifications. Sometimes I deliberately change the code and see if it triggers an error. These popup notifications are very unpleasant to look at. It would also be nice to incorporate this within the extension settings.