collab: Fix project sharing between Windows and Unix

[JunkuiZhang]

Closes #14258

Windows user(host) sharing a project to a guest(using macOS), and host follows guest:

Screen.Recording.2025-02-07.004405.mp4

macOS user(host) sharing a project to a guest(using Windows), and host follows guest:

2025-02-07.00.46.55.mov

macOS user edits files in a windows project through collab:

2025-02-07.00.57.36.mov

Release Notes:

• N/A

[JunkuiZhang]

The current issue is that when pairing, if the host follows the guest, the host cannot see the guest's actions. However, when the guest follows the host, the guest can see the host's actions.

[JunkuiZhang]

This is so strange. When I run Zed manually by setting the ZED_SERVER_URL and other environment variables, instead of using the zed-local script to start Zed, host no longer experience the issue. I'm really not sure what’s causing the problem where the host can't see the guest's actions when the host follows the guest. Weird

It's ZED_STATELESS causing this issue. If I set ZED_STATELESS="1", the host can't see the guest's actions when the host follows the guest. If I set ZED_STATELESS="", everything is just fine.

[mikayla-maki]

It's ZED_STATELESS causing this issue. If I set ZED_STATELESS="1", the host can't see the guest's actions when the host follows the guest. If I set ZED_STATELESS="", everything is just fine.

This seems very strange, ZED_STATELESS should only affect the sqlite db we use to save your application state. Any theories for why it's messing up the host?

[JunkuiZhang]

This seems very strange, ZED_STATELESS should only affect the sqlite db we use to save your application state. Any theories for why it's messing up the host?

I have no clue about why setting ZED_STATELESS causes this issue, but I can reliably reproduce the issue by setting ZED_STATELESS to either "1" or "". Moreover, when A shares a project with B, where A is the host and B is the guest, and A follows B (host follows guest), whether A can see B's actions depends solely on A's ZED_STATELESS setting. If A sets ZED_STATELESS = "1", A will not be able to see B's actions. However, if ZED_STATELESS = "", A will be able to see B's actions. This behavior is independent of B's ZED_STATELESS setting.

[JunkuiZhang]

I can reproduce this with both A and B are on the same mac.

In a new terminal, set the following for A:

export ZED_IMPERSONATE="as-cii"
export ZED_SERVER_URL="http://127.0.0.1:3000"
export ZED_RPC_URL="http://127.0.0.1:8080/rpc"
export ZED_ADMIN_API_TOKEN="secret"
export ZED_CLIENT_CHECKSUM_SEED="development-checksum-seed"
export ZED_STATELESS="1"  // Key setting

Then cargo run to open an instance of zed for A.

In a new terminal:

export ZED_IMPERSONATE="nathansobo"
export ZED_SERVER_URL="http://127.0.0.1:3000"
export ZED_RPC_URL="http://127.0.0.1:8080/rpc"
export ZED_ADMIN_API_TOKEN="secret"
export ZED_CLIENT_CHECKSUM_SEED="development-checksum-seed"
export ZED_STATELESS=""  // Dose not matter

Then cargo run to open an instance of zed for B.

• A shares a project with B
• B accept, then cancel the following
• A (host) follows B (guest)
• B perform some actions
• A can not see the actions

[mikayla-maki]

I think these comments are a good idea, but I don't think they provide much benefit in the end. Let's remove everything with NOTE:, and similar comments, in this PR.

[mikayla-maki]

As well as all of the // path, and other such comments.

[JunkuiZhang]

I have removed all the comments, but I'm not sure how we can ensure that other developers use the relevant functions correctly. After all, Zed is an open-source project, and some contributors may not be aware of this, potentially leading them to mistakenly use to_string_lossy().to_string(), which could result in hard-to-detect bugs.

[mikayla-maki]

Also, it would be nice to figure out why ZED_STATELESS is breaking your collaboration. And we should make sure we're syncing the host's OS over the wire so that we can display paths properly. But I think that those can be in a separate PR :)

[JunkuiZhang]

Also, it would be nice to figure out why ZED_STATELESS is breaking your collaboration.

ZED_STATELESS may not be the issue in this PR, as I am able to reproduce the problem on the current main branch as well. This is very strange.

And we should make sure we're syncing the host's OS over the wire so that we can display paths properly. But I think that those can be in a separate PR :)

Actually, my thinking is that this setup works quite well as it is. Currently, the Windows path path\to\file.rs is displayed as path\to\file.rs on Windows, but on macOS, it is displayed as path/to/file.rs, which feels like that the Windows project is running natively on macOS.