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.
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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!"
I was asked to create a configuration web interface for a set of configurable C# code snippets. This interface will be used massively by our company's developers.
Our company codding standard is ASP.NET / C# and all developers' IDE is Visual Studio. I figured out the best way to keep their developing experience unchanged is to actually open the snippets in Visual Studio, however I am afraid this is not even technically possible.
I also thought of using some highlighting libraries, however it will solve only the coloring problem, but not the rest of what the usual C# IDE offers.
Any suggestions?
I'm sure this works in VS2010 but is there any way to get snippets to work in .JS files in Visual Studio 2008?
There's a comment from way back in 2007 in ScottGu's post about JS Intellisense that it might have happened, but I would like to know if it has been officially taken off the table.
I don't believe there is. If you look at more of Scott's blogs you will find this one.
http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/2009/09/04/asp-net-html-javascript-snippet-support-vs-2010-and-net-4-0-series.aspx
He makes a comment of "Visual Studio has supported the concept of “snippets” for VB and C# in previous releases – but not for HTML, ASP.NET markup and JavaScript. With VS 2010 we now support snippets for these content types as well."
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 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.