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Javascript intellisense / autocomplete
Posted: Sun Oct 17, 2010 11:56 am
by dotnetaddicted
Hi there, from Italy!
please, could you explain step by step
what I have to do in order to have code intellisense/autocomplete working in javascript
For example: if I type:
var alfa=document.get
I would like the intellisense pop up with:
getElementById
getElementsByTagName
etc ...
is it possible?
Thank you,
Francesco Torre
Posted: Sun Oct 17, 2010 11:28 pm
by jussij
Hi Francesco,
please, could you explain step by step what I have to do in order to have code intellisense/autocomplete
To setup the editor for auto complete all you have to do is create a new workspace using the
Workspace menu and then add files to that workspace.
Zeus will then tag the files in the workspace and put the information it finds into the
Class Browser panel. It uses this information to drive the auto completion.
There is also an option to create tag information for files that are external to your workspace by using the
Tags Builder and
.Net Database Builder options found on the
Tags menu.
These tools will create a tags database file that you can then attach to a given workspace using the
Tags Database section found off the
Workspace Options menu.
Alternatively you can attach these tag files to any given document type using the
Tags Database using the
Options, Document Types menu.
working in JavaScript
But unfortunately for dynamic languages like Java Script auto complete is very hard to implement
For an explanation of why, consider your sample line of code:
Short of running this code through a Java Script interpreter, there is no easy way of knowing what type of variable
alfa actually is
And since there is no type information for the variable, there is no auto completion
Cheers Jussi
Posted: Mon Oct 18, 2010 11:46 pm
by jussij
Hi Francesco,
I would like the intellisense pop up with:
getElementById
getElementsByTagName
etc ...
is it possible?
I found a solution that does provided a least some form of intellisense.
As a very rough test I create a
dummy.js file that looks like this:
Code: Select all
class document
{
// Properties
alinkColor;
anchors;
applets;
bgColor;
cookie;
domain;
embeds;
fgColor;
formName;
forms;
images;
lastModified;
layers;
linkColor;
links;
plugins;
referrer;
title;
URL;
vlinkColor;
// Methods of document Object:
captureEvents();
close();
getElementById();
getElementsByName();
getElementsByTagName();
getSelection();
handleEvent();
open();
releaseEvents();
routeEvent();
write();
writeln();
};
and just added this
dummy.js file to the current workspace.
So now when I type in this code:
Zeus will display intellisense information for the document
To do this properly the document methods could be enhanced to also include the argument details, in which case you would also get intellisense when the
( character is entered.
I would also suggest creating a special
Java Script workspace and putting this file into that workspace.
You could then attach the resulting tag file to the
Java Script document type as described in my previous reply.
Doing this means the intellisense would work for all
Java Script files, even when no workspace is open.
Cheers Jussi
Posted: Tue Oct 26, 2010 7:11 am
by dotnetaddicted
Ok, thank you I will try that.
Though I think it is an important functionality Zeus Editor should feature by default.
Bye,
Francesco.
Posted: Tue Oct 26, 2010 8:11 am
by jussij
Hi Francesco,
I had a bit more of a play with this and from what I can tell this seems to work quite well
But I can't be sure since I have only done a minimal amount of JavaScript coding
What I did was create a bigger
dummy.js file by doing a bit of
cut and copy from
this web site. This new file is shown below:
Code: Select all
class object
{
name name;
type type;
value value;
anchor anchor;
applet applet;
area area;
button button;
checkbox checkbox;
elements elements;
embed embed;
event event;
FileUpload FileUpload;
form form;
frame frame;
hidden hidden;
image image;
mimeType mimeType;
option option;
password password;
plugin plugin;
radio radio;
reset reset;
select select;
submit submit;
text text;
textarea textarea;
link link;
};
class frame
{
frames frames;
name name;
length length;
parent parent;
self self;
};
class form
{
action action;
elements elements[name];
encoding encoding;
length length;
method method;
name name;
target target;
button button;
checkbox checkbox;
FileUpload FileUpload;
hidden hidden;
password password;
radio radio;
reset reset;
select select;
submit submit;
text text;
textarea textarea;
};
class FileUpload
{
accessKey accessKey;
disabled disabled;
form form;
name name;
type type;
value value;
blur();
focus();
select();
handleEvent();
click();
};
Now if I add this
dummy.js file to a test workspace and create a
new JavaScript file I then find all of the following coding patterns provide intellisense:
Code: Select all
object.
object.frame.
object.form.FileUpload.
What I have not been able to find is a web page that contains a full definition of all the
JavaScript objects with their
properties and methods fully defined
With that sort of information it should be possible to create a complete
dummy.js file which should in theory mean the intellisense would also be more complete.
Cheers Jussi
Posted: Sat Oct 30, 2010 10:38 pm
by knudvaneeden
Posted: Mon Nov 01, 2010 2:11 am
by jussij
I also came across the
this pdf filethat also seems to be quite good
Cheers Jussi
Posted: Sat Jan 28, 2012 5:45 am
by amix
Hi,
did anybody implement this fully? I feel so lazy.
Thx, Andreas
Posted: Sat Jan 28, 2012 7:01 am
by jussij
did anybody implement this fully? I feel so lazy.
I don't mind doing the work and creating a better implementation. In that way I can also make it a default of the Zeus installer.
But unfortunately I don't code enough JavaScript to no if the solution that I offered works and works well enough to justify the effort of creating a better more complete implementation
My hunch is bcause of the very dynamic nature of JavaScript the solution might not work well enough but I don't know
Any feedback from real JavaScript coders as to whether this solution works well enough would be great
Cheers Jussi