New JavaScript Editor
- by Petr
I did not write a blog post here for a few weeks. I think the last my post was about releasing NetBeans 7.1 in the beginning of January. The reason is not that I would change the job:), but that I have concentrated on new JavaScript support/editor.
The new JavaScript editor is written basically from scratch. The answer for the question "Why from beginning again, why do you just improve the old one?" is not easy and the decision has more aspects. One of the main reasons is that the old support was written 4 years ago and the architecture is limited. Also during the time, the APIs were changed and it was very hard to keep the editor up to date. Also there is a license issue etc. In short, it is time to rewrite the old JS editor.
We build up strong community about the PHP support in NetBeans and because many PHP developers also write JavaScript code I would like to ask you for a help. There is a continual PHP build with the new JavaScript support. You can download the result of the builds here. It's a zip file. You can unzip the file anywhere, where you want. I recommend to run the build with the new userdir, to avoid damaging your current userdir. It shouldn't happened, but just to be sure:). You can achieve this through the switch --userdir. So start the unzipped file from command line from the folder, where you unzipped it, can be done with this command on unix:
bin/netbeans.sh --userdir /path/to/new/userdir
and on windows:
bin\netbeans.exe --userdir D:\path\to\new\userdir
For the developers who use continual php build already, it's well known. There is also full IDE build with the new JavaScript support for people, who need more than only PHP support.
Because the builds with the new JavaScript editor is created from a branch, there are not nightly builds available. They will be, when we merge the branch to the trunk, but so far we have to work only with the mentioned continual build. We will merge our branch after branching NetBeans 7.2 from trunk. This is also answer for the question, what release of NetBeans will contain the new JS support. It should be the release after NetBeans 7.2.
I'm asking you whether you could play with the builds or better, could work in the builds with new JavaScript support and tell us every issue that you run in. It can be everything what doesn't fit you, something doesn't work as you expected, something is slow, you want change the behaviour of a feature etc. Your input / comments are very important for us and it will help us to achieve the new JavaScript support that you need.
The best way how to communicate issues is through our Bugzilla, because it is simple to track them. Sure you can write comment here:), but still I prefer Bugzilla for any issue. You can click here (you should be already log in Bugzilla), a form for the new JavaScript issue is opened, with pre-filled component Editor and NO72 keyword.
I will write about the single features later, but now I will mentioned a few features that should work in better way than in the old support.
Syntactic and semantic colouring
Navigator
Mark Occurrences and GoTo Declaration
Code Completion
Code Completion is invoked through keyboard shortcut CTRL+SPACE. The first invocation offers items that are found through a source model. Almost all editor features are based on the model, that is build from source code. There is a lot of work on the model yet, but it should offer better results.
When the pop up window with code completion items is open and you press CTRL+SPACE again, then the code completion offers all elements that are in the project. In the pictures all elements that starts with letter 't'.
Formatter with many options
and more :)
A few features are not still implemented that are supported in the old JavaScript support (for example jQuery support), but we are adding this features ASAP.
