Are there any known Plugins or ways to properly autoformat Javascript in Netbeans IDE?
EDIT 9/15/2012
After looking into this further, I have found that the javascript module is being rewritten already(much needed). You can finally find formatting options for javascript. It's available in the netbeans nightly builds. Good luck all.
http://bits.netbeans.org/download/trunk/nightly/
I have released a pretty simple JS formatter that uses JSBeautify and runs in Rhino.
http://plugins.netbeans.org/plugin/43263/jsbeautify
You have to use an alternate key for now. I'm working on modifying the Javascript language in Netbeans to possibly release something better, later on(either as a plugin or patch). I'm still familiarizing myself with the way things are happening in Netbeans.
There have been talks for years to add more formatting options for Javascript in Netbeans. Nothing has surfaced. I'm going to propose that the Javascript language leverage JSBeautify(running in Rhino) to provide formatting, rather then implementing new features in Java. This simplifies the formatting process, plus the JSBeautify community is very large and it's actively developed.
Related
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.
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/
I am working on an ASP.NET project, and it is very frustrating how poor the support for JavaScript is in VS. For example, no outlining, no f12 to find a definition, no refactoring, no code analysis, no ready support for documenting functions, horrible navigation and barely functional intelisense.
Although JavaScript is no doubt an intractable language, it is clearly possible to do these things: many PHP/Python/Java toolsets have much better support.
I was wondering if there is a decent plug in for JavaScript in VS? Does everyone just suffer in silence, or am I missing something? I find the contrast between working in the C# side, which has awesome tools, to the JavaScript side which has tools with 1990s functionality quite disconcerting.
I'm looking forward (it's not available as yet) to the JavaScript support in ReSharper 6: http://blogs.jetbrains.com/dotnet/2010/09/resharper-6-javascript-css-support-coming-up/
This one is pretty good too ..
http://code.google.com/p/js-addin
I currently use TextMate for Ruby/Javascript/Actionscript development and it is amazing. But one thing I would really love to use are breakpoints so I could stop code execution and examine the state of the variables and walk through the code. Something like what Flex Builder does.
Does TextMate have this capability? Or what do you use to do breakpoints and that sort of thing with Ruby? How about for Javascript too?
Thanks!
Since TextMate is not an IDE but just a text editor (on steroids though!) I believe this is something totally not supported.
As for the javascript, this is something you can do with firebug (at least for firefox) and similar tools are included (or can be found) for IE, Chrome and Safari :)
There are 3 mostly-Java IDEs that run under Mac OS X yet do a good job of developing (and of course debugging) Ruby.
Eclipse, with the Aptana plugin;
IntelliJ IDEA (it knows lots of programming languages)
NetBeans (I think).
All three are free (even IntelliJ, they have an Open Source edition out now), so you can just download, play around with it, get accustomed and go to town.
Eclipse with the Dynamic Languages Toolkit supports Ruby debugging. I have used it in the past, and it supports Javascript as well.
TextMate is an editor and not a full-blown IDE, so it doesn't support debugging.
If you're looking for a Ruby IDE, I highly recommend RubyMine. It's got great support for debugging, running tests, easily navigating between files, and basic refactoring. Admittedly it's a lot more heavyweight, so I tend to use it for major work (or when getting up to speed on an existing code base), and still use TextMate for quick changes.
There are some open source solutions as well. In the past I've used NetBeans and RadRails, and particularly NetBeans has worked very well for me, too. Not as good as RubyMine, but well worth checking out if you're on a budget.
I should also point out that you can debug Ruby apps from the command line, using the ruby-debug gem. Basically, you place a debugger call into your code to set a breakpoint, and then run the app with rdebug instead of ruby. Check out this article for an overview.
arcadia is a ruby editor written in ruby with ruby debugging support. A little rough still, but at least you get the good feeling of running ruby :)
-r
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.