Visual Studio 2015 CE Javascript editor not recognizing '(?' in regex - javascript

I'm looking for your help because I'm having a weird issue with the Visual Studio 2015 editor. I have a javascript file that contains a regular expression that uses a lookbehind, something like this:
var regexStr = /(?<=[0-9a-zA-Z]+)(\/{2,})(?=[0-9a-zA-Z]+)/;
For some reason, the question mark is "breaking" the syntax and the code editor shows it as an error, although the regex is working as expected.
Do you guys know if the '(?' is defined as a special char in the Visual Studio 2015 editor?
Greetings fellow programmers!

First thing I would say is that Visual Studio 2015 is a sub-optimal tool for JavaScript development. There are much better tools for web development that are available for free. This could potentially be seen as opinion based, but developers vote with their feet when it comes to tooling and what makes their workflow easier and faster, and very few people are picking VS 2015 for JS development in 2020. So I have to ask, is there a reason you are locked into using particular piece of software and version for JavaScript? Are you open to using a different tool? If so, comment below and I will add a list of choices for editors and IDE's that are more popular choices and that will most likely make your life as a developer easier.
Assuming though that you want to continue using VS 2015, regardless of its myriad flaws, and just want this particular thing solved, I think that what you are seeing may be the result of updated ECMAScript/JavaScript syntax leaving VS 2015 in the dust. It could also be that this was always just a bug. I first suggest ensuring that you have updated the base application as much as VS 2015 will allow you to. Are you using a pro or community version? Even if you stuck with Visual Studio, you could still get a more recent year's version, and if you are already using the community version that update would be free. Once you are sure you have updated the software as much as possible, I would suggest looking for an extension that could help you with this particular issue.
You can search the Visual Studio Extension Marketplace yourself, and I would look for one that offers things like "JavaScript syntax highlighting" or "updated JavaScript grammar".
Here is an extension I just found that may help you as well:
Regex Editor - "IntelliSense, syntax coloring, in-place testing and more for your regular expressions, right inside the editor!"

Related

Working with JavaScript in Visual Studio 2012

I am working on an old website that uses the Ext framework. It has a huge .js file at its core. I'm not a front-end web guy, I usually write the server and service side code, so I'm unfamiliar with getting heavy with JavaScript in Visual Studio.
In this file, there's this snippet:
...
// private
onDestroy : function(){
if(this.manager){
this.manager.unregister(this);
}
Ext.Window.superclass.onDestroy.call(this);
},
...
How do I find the 'manager' member there? I can't F12 to it and there's no combobox full of members at the top of the editor.
Is this just how it is with JavaScript? Is it because VS has poor support? Is it something to do with the way the project/files are setup?
Please don't mention alternative IDEs, or if you do, don't pass opinion on them that might get us in trouble with the SO police. Woop, woop.
Well, I gave it a while and no one piped up so, from what I've just seen on //build/ 2013, Visual Studio 2012 is pretty crap with JavaScript and its much improved in 2013, including the 'combobox full of members' at the top, CoffeeScript support and some other recent ECMAScript change support.

How to get basic Visual Studio features for javascript (VS 2010)

I'm looking for a good way to add a couple capabilities to VS 2010's javascript intellisense that are working properly for C#. Specifically, I want to:
reliably refactor javascript code
go to the function definition (F12 for me) and
check for all uses of a function or item (Shift + F12 for me).
I'm aware of Refactor! and Visual Assist X, but I haven't found any comment on how well the features they advertise are supported in javascript. Most of the features they advertise seem to be based on languages that are much less dynamic.
So, I ask:
Any comment on the plugins mentioned above?
Are there any other good plugins that add these features (or most of them) to VS 2010?
Are there any IDE's that approach this feature set?
ReSharper 6 has great support for JavaScript.
It does include features like:
Refactoring (it's not 100% reliable since it's not possible with JavaScript, but it's really good at it)
Go to definition
Find usages
On the downside, it's a little expensive; but, as far as I'm concerned, it's worth the price.

programming in javascript with Visual Studio (2010)?

Whether you are forced to code javascript in Visual Studio 2010, or insist on using Visual Studio 2010 instead of another IDE, I'm wondering what anyone has done to improve the javascript development experience in VS2010.
I'm asking since javascript support is lacking in Visual Studio 2010. You don't get the the kind of support you get as if you were developing Silverlight apps in C# and XAML. For example, the intellisense doesn't support javascript 1.8.5 (or even 1.6 functions i.e. JSON.Parse), it's difficult to navigate to function or object definitions (no Go To Definition), no Object Browser, Call Hierarchy, and the list can go on.
What have you done to compensate for the VS2010 features that don't exist for javascript? Also, what would be a good feature request to support javascript development; anything that VS2010 should add as an extension or a future release? Also, are there any suggestions to manage the .js code for large projects?
A few things that have helped me so far are the JScript Editor Extensions, and the Web Standards Update. Also, when working in .js files I rely on bookmarks to get back to key places, since the functions of the file aren't visible (as the would be in C#). My feature request would be to add intellisense support by javascript version, similar to how you can target .NET 2.0, 3.5, or 4.0.
There are a number of VS extensions to assist with javascript:
Visual Studio Javascript extensions feature comparison
JSEnhancements is awesome, and does what you really want: adds regions and code block collapsing.
Also see this extension: http://code.google.com/p/js-addin/
which parses your script into an object tree that can be used for navigation.
I have also used the free version of this editor: http://www.yaldex.com/JSFactory_Pro.htm
I can't recommend it, unfortunately, because it suffers from a couple critical problems (awkward UI, freaky intellisense, and not entirely stable). Which is too bad because it's a very thoughtfully designed piece of software by and large, it just fails where the rubber meets the road.
1) Install Resharper, helps a lot when building javascript heavy web apps.
2) Get FireBug for debugging.
3) Also, the JQuery.vsdocs files are sometimes helpful!
While I use vim and Notepad++ to cut code, I feel your pain, or did until I started using Firebug to debug JavaScript. While it many not be exactly fitting for your situation it's invaluable to me in developing Web based apps:
http://getfirebug.com/

Is jWYSIWYG editor too buggy for production use?

After reading the comments on this site:
http://www.webresourcesdepot.com/jwysiwyg-jquery-inline-content-editor-plugin/
There is a bit of consensus that jWYSIWYG editor is too buggy (especially in the last few recent comments). Has anyone had experience with it in a large production site?
I haven't run a huge sample of markup through it yet, but so far it has seemed to do the job fine.
I have been using jwysiwyg (https://github.com/akzhan/jwysiwyg) for about 4 months now on several production sites and I have to say that it is the best lightweight wysiwyg editor that I have used. It is small, fast, and reliable. I strongly recommend it for anyone that doesn't need a full-featured editor. If you need to work with complex source code and html markup then this may not be for you, but for business-level users it works very well.
I am guessing that the original question and all comments until here are out-dated. This is a great plugin.
are u tried to find some other place where this editor can be located? for example: http://github.com/akzhan/jwysiwyg/downloads ? There u can find v. 0.9 released few days ago
This answer may no longer reflect the current state of the project.
Checkout out the current version on https://github.com/akzhan/jwysiwyg and decide yourself.
I don't know the project but I conclude: Don't use it (at least at the moment)
the google code page jwysiwyg contains no documentation
the download also doesn't contain any
there are 91 open issues in the tracker (which for such a small project isn't a good indicator)
last commit (r33) was on the 21. September 2009
the second-last commit (r32) was on 21. April 2009
so no frequent updates to codebase either
no new download file (current is jwysiwyg-0.5.zip which dates from January 2009), although he made 3 commits after publishing v0.5 of which:
2 contain fixes for issues
1 restructures directory layout and adds a minimal example to the codebase
jwysiwyg has grown year-to-year development activity and community.
It hosted on GitHub more than1 year, so feel free to use, fork, patch and do pull request.

JavaScript tools for Visual Studio 2005

I need to find if there are any tools targeting both Visual Studio 2005 and JavaScript. I'm interested in plugins which will increase the quality of work done in VS2005 with JavaScript oriented development.
I think you'll be hard pressed to find anything specific for VS2005, since it is a dev environment and JS is a client technology. However, a couple of ideas you might want to consider:
jQuery. The recent availability of Intellisense for jQuery (although I think it is only for VS2008) helps your quality of work in the sense that you don't have to spend so much time looking back and forth at documentation, although I would say that is the best way to really become familiar with it anyway. There are several other good JS libraries out there, but (a) I don't think that was the point of your question, and (b) jQuery is the only one "semi-officially" supported in VS that I'm aware of.
Script#. Although I haven't used it, it looks interesting... basically you program in C#, and it gets translated to JS at runtime.
If you could afford it, I'll recommend upgrading to Visual Studio 2008. You can open .NET 2.0 application without converting them. It comes with much better Javascript Intellisense.
(source: scottgu.com)
One of the other JavaScript features in VS 2008 is the much-improved support for JavaScript debugging.
These features are enabled in both the free Visual Web Developer 2008 Express edition as well as in Visual Studio, and makes using JavaScript and building AJAX applications significantly easier.
If you are using jQuery in your applications, then you could install jQuery Intellisense in VS 2008.
Well, if you want something that will help you write better Javascript in Visual Studio then you can give JSLint a try. It's a plugin that will verify your Javascript code, spot errors, and help you debug it.
Beware, JSLint can hurt feelings.

Categories