How does a user know what settings are overridden by an extension?

[Tyriar]

• VSCode Version: Code - Insiders 1.6.0-insider (f62883f, 2016-09-27T13:07:11.616Z)
• OS Version: Linux x64 4.4.0-38-generic, Ubuntu 16.04
  Test API'ish way to change configuration settings #12614

Steps to Reproduce:

1. Set "terminal.integrated.cursorBlinking": true in your settings.json

2. Run an extension containing:

   vscode.workspace.getConfiguration()
     .update('terminal.integrated.cursorBlinking', false, false);

3. Try to figure out why "terminal.integrated.cursorBlinking": true is not working

4. File a bug to Microsoft/vscode

[Tyriar]

I realized shortly after this that it's in ./.vscode/settings.json, not local storage. Most users will be unaware of this though, don't we owe users some warning before an extension goes and messes with their settings files?

I was expecting the changes to be stored elsewhere, perhaps with a warning annotation within the settings.json file indicating that an extension has overridden an extension. If I were a normal user without my settings.json source controlled and symlinked to I would be very irritated if an extension messed with it. Especially if I then uninstalled the extension and it didn't revert the change.

[Tyriar]

I realize this would be a complete change in how it's handled but I think a model like this is worth consideration for the future to protect settings and make sure installing and then uninstalling an extension doesn't change the way that the editor behaves.

[bpasero]

@Tyriar isn't this covered in #10583

[Tyriar]

@bpasero that only cares about the extension author perspective doesn't it, not surfacing the information to the user?

[bpasero]

@Tyriar ok I see what you mean. there is no information, it is up to an extension to decide if a message should be shown or not. in the end this is just API to write to the settings file.

[jrieken]

dup of #10583