Cannot start scene at beginning of method

[VladimirFokow]

#48 (comment)

It seems like I am now unable to start a terminal at all on my device.

This can happen if you e.g. place your cursor here:

class SquareToCircle(Scene):
    def construct(self): <--- here, on the `construct` method
        <--- or here, on empty lines just after the line with `construct` method
        <--- or here
        <--- or here
        ## Set up
        circle = Circle()
        circle.set_fill(BLUE, opacity=0.5)
        circle.set_stroke(BLUE_E, width=4)
        square = Square()

(the reason: the command manimgl ... -se <this line number> itself doesn't work with these line numbers)

The fix is easy - we just need to add this logic to startStopScene.ts
(I just overlooked this edge case when I wrote that.)

For example, what to do in this case:

currently: if empty lines - we check up 1 by 1

if we meet the construct method -> insert a next line and start there, e.g.:

        # -- manim-notebook VSCode extension: this comment was inserted automatically to start right after the "construct" method --

[bhoov]

I'm a bit confused, why is this? The manimgl cmd only adds the self.embed() method underneath the current line...

Is it because self.embed() is inserted without correct tab spacing under the construct() method? I would be that Grant implemented an insertion that simply copied the indent of the preceding line when inserting self.embed()

[VladimirFokow]

I don't really know why their command doesn't support that,
but we operate on an abstraction layer which uses their commands, we don't modify them

[Splines]

Do we really want to "fix" this? I mean we have identified that this has nothing to do with us, it's just a limitation of the underlying manimgl command that it can't start the scene at these lines. So ideally, we would fix this upstream at Manim such that it also works if you just use the command line.

Of course, for a better user experience with our extension, we could detect this case and show an error notification (instead of letting the user baffled with a cryptic error message in the terminal). In such an error notification, we could even link to an open Manim issue we have opened by then. What do you think about this?

[VladimirFokow]

I can easily fix this here - after finishing with your active codebase changes
(this would be a better ux than an error).

Of course, an issue or PR can be opened for manimgl as well

[VladimirFokow]

ah, I thought wrongly: I thought we could insert that comment only internally...
(but it doesn't work this way - because we run the command on the user's actual file.
Internally we only calculate which terminal command to run).

Ok, but I still made a PR - it edits the user's file.
(
Whenever the manimgl command starts supporting starting the scene on any of these lines,
this PR can be reverted.
)

[VladimirFokow]

reason for closing:
decided no to edit the user's file