bug: ambiguous discussion of Language Server Integration

[RossBoylan]

Is there an existing issue for this?

• I have searched the existing issues

Description

The extension page contains a discussion of Language Server Integration, screenshot below. The discussion is ambiguous in several ways.

By default, Modern Fortran will attempt to use it [the language server] for hover, autocompletion, symbols and Go to & Peeking into definitions.

So if the language server is unavailable, what happens? The current wording suggests both that there may be fallbacks for those functions, so they would still work, and that the functions won't work without the server.

Allow for fortls to be automatically installed with pip or Anaconda and if the location where fortls is installed is not in your PATH point VS Code to the fortls location by setting

Does this need to be done before installing the extension?
This suggests the plugin will automatically install the language server, but it is not clear that that is the case.
If the extension does ordinarily automatically install fortls, what happens if it is already installed?

And the advice about setting fortran.fortls.path seems as if it's something that can only be done once the extension is installed, so it wouldn't help with the installation process itself. But maybe VSCode lets one set options before the corresponding package is installed?

Screenshots

Expected Behaviour

Clear instructions about what to do to setup the extension properly, including when to do those things.

Version of Modern Fortran

3.2.0

Version of Visual Studio Code

1.78.2

Platform and Architecture

Windows

Additional Information

I previously interpreted the instructions as meaning that I should install fortls before installing the extension. Looking at them more closely, it now seems to me that it is installed automatically (though presumably Python is not).