settings: simplify flow to set path for an executable

[ghost]

Please search existing issues to avoid creating duplicates.

searched lots of random issues.
example: #251 #22391 #25576

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I encountered this for php, but should be general.

1. copy-pasted from my path to appease 'PHP Language features (Extension)'

    "php.validate.executablePath":"C:\Users\username\Downloads\php-7.4.2"

expected it to work.

Describe the feature you'd like

It can't understand it.

if it can parse the string correctly

two better ways to improve the situation would be

• search for php file in the given folder, since the value(string) is given.
  Or
• name the key to be more intuitive. one example: - "php.validate.pathToExecutable"

there's more than two issues here. My end-goal is to make it straightforward to remove such vscode pop-ups without having to dabble in different things for not much benefit. Starting with php as its not the main focus of vscode, so issues should be minimal.

Don't have a statistic or anything to point to as indication that its going to benefit vscode users. Just one more thing I personally wanted to do in vscode and hit a speed-bump.

[ghost]

way to ignore issue and accomplish what vscode's 'PHP Language features (Extension)' wants:
"php.validate.executablePath":"C:\\Users\\username\\Downloads\\php-7.4.2"

this will allow it to interpret it. now it will display a false warning.

using
C:\\Users\\username\\Downloads\\php-7.4.2\\php.exe
should silence it. now you can go back to doing what you want.

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you can also disable the PHP Language features (Extension) I realised from looking into it that its the sane default for builtin extensions of this type, if builtin programming language related extensions are not a big issue. Syntax highlighting still works, using built-in programming language extensions ending in 'Basics'

Disabling them should also improve performance. Definitely a better experience without all silly pop-ups. Wish there was a way to disable builtin programming language extensions easily instead of one-by-one.

I will add this to my wiki. feel free to do the same, if it suits the project needs.

[roblourens]

Yeah the backslashes need to be escaped, that's just JSON's rules. You can also use forward slashes.