Environments

Environments is our work on industry-specific bench software: purpose-built, open source workbenches for the people who design, test, program and run physical things. We build them on Eclipse Theia, an open source platform for making exactly this kind of tool.

Early stage. We are pioneering modules and complete environments and testing them in the Greater Niagara region. This is work in progress, not a finished product.

What Theia is

An IDE (integrated development environment) is the workbench where software gets written, run and debugged, all in one place. Most people know the finished ones. Eclipse Theia is different: it is the platform you build one from. It is open source, run by the Eclipse Foundation, and lets a team make a tailored tool that runs in a browser or as a desktop app from a single source. It began in 2016, started by Ericsson and TypeFox, and is still shipping regular releases, with an AI-native Theia IDE alongside the platform.

The point is that you do not have to start from nothing, and you do not have to take someone else’s tool as it comes. You assemble the environment your trade needs.

The terms, in plain English

Term	What it means
Platform	The set of parts an IDE is built from. Theia is a platform, so you build your own IDE from it.
Extension	An add-on that gives an environment a new ability. Theia hosts VS Code extensions and has its own, deeper Theia extensions.
Language server (LSP)	A standard way to add language smarts, such as completion and error checking, to any editor.
Debug adapter (DAP)	A standard way to connect a debugger to an editor.
Open VSX	An open registry of extensions that Theia can draw on.
White-label	A product built on Theia that carries its own name and design, not Theia’s.
GLSP	An Eclipse technology for diagram-style editors, such as ladder logic.

Theia and VS Code

Theia reuses good parts of VS Code, including its editor, extension model and language and debug standards, but it is not a fork of it. Per the Eclipse community (who back Theia, so read it with that in mind):

	VS Code	Theia
Built as	An extensible code editor.	A platform for building custom tools and IDEs.
Runs	As a developer IDE.	On desktop and in the cloud from one technology stack.
Extends	Through the VS Code extension API.	Through VS Code extensions and Theia extensions, with deep access to internals.
Openness	The downloadable product is under a Microsoft licence and includes some proprietary parts.	Open source components, vendor-neutral governance under the Eclipse Foundation.

Who already builds on it

Theia is not a hobby project. The Eclipse Foundation lists adopters across embedded, industrial and cloud tooling:

Product	Domain	What it is
logi.CLOUD	Industrial automation	A browser-based engineering platform with graphical editors for the IEC 61131-3 PLC languages (Structured Text, Function Block Diagram, Ladder).
Arduino IDE 2.0	Embedded and IoT	The development environment for Arduino boards.
TI Code Composer Studio	Embedded and IoT	Texas Instruments’ environment for its microcontrollers, moved from Eclipse RCP to Theia.
Arm Mbed Studio	Embedded and IoT	A desktop IDE for building applications and libraries with Mbed OS.
Renesas QuickConnect Studio	Embedded and IoT	A cloud platform for visual development of hardware.
MVTec HDevelop EVO	Machine vision	A modernised IDE for machine vision development.
KillerCoda	Education	Interactive labs for learning Linux and Kubernetes.

The pattern is the same each time: a domain with its own way of working gets a tool shaped to it. The logi.CLOUD story is worth reading in full: it combines Theia with Eclipse GLSP to give automation engineers graphical editors and live debugging in a browser.

Why it suits industry

Shaped to the trade. An environment can show only what a job needs, in the terms the people doing it use.
Runs in a browser. One source can serve shared bench machines and Members’ own laptops, with nothing special to install.
Graphical when it should be. Ladder logic and process diagrams are pictures, and GLSP-style editors let a tool show them that way.
Builds on a large ecosystem. It hosts VS Code extensions, so we reuse rather than reinvent.
Open and vendor-neutral. No single company decides its future, which fits an open, local approach to industrial software. See also Gage.

What we are doing

We are pioneering two kinds of thing, then testing and deploying them within the Greater Niagara region:

Layer	What it is
Modules	Focused extensions that add one ability to an environment: a view, a tool, a connection to an instrument.
Complete environments	Whole IDEs assembled for a trade or workflow from our modules and existing extensions, and white-labelled to fit.
Testing and deployment	Putting them in front of real users at real benches in the region, then running them where people work.

Ideas we are exploring

A workbench for electronics assembly, test and firmware.
Browser-based Linux and embedded labs for training. See Linux training.
An environment for programming and testing industrial automation.
Environments for design and CNC workflows. See Manufacturing training.

What we need

Web and TypeScript developers who want to build Theia extensions. Engineers and tradespeople who know what a bench tool ought to do. Shops willing to try early versions and say what is wrong with them. Tell us you can help build the open source software, register as an expert, or find our work on GitHub.

Niagara Assembly is not affiliated with the Eclipse Foundation or the companies named here. Names are used to describe technology that exists. Sources: Theia Platform, Eclipse Theia adopters, Theia vs VS Code.

All tools: Board · HeavyMap · Environments · Gage.

Questions, or want to help build? Write to office@niagaraassembly.com.