SmartClient plugin for Aptana
We’re pleased to announce a beta release of the SmartClient plugin for Aptana Studio. Among other features, this plugin provides code auto-completion for SmartClient APIs, boosting your efficiency and making it easier to learn and discover SmartClient’s rather vast functionality.
Eclipse fans, take note: Aptana can be installed as an Eclipse plugin, so this will slot right into your existing environment.
Update
If you’re having any trouble getting this working, a couple of tips:
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If you’re not seeing the “SmartClient 6.5.1″ entries in either Global References or in the New Project wizard, try running “Clean Configuration” on the Help | Aptana Troubleshooting menu
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If you’re trying to make it work with Eclipse 3.4, you must use the 1.1.7 beta version of Aptana – instructions here
The Aptana IDE is already a pretty good place to do Javascript development, with syntax coloring, error checking and code assist for core Javascript functionality. The SmartClient plugin provides these extra features specifically for SmartClient developers:
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The option to create a SmartClient project in the Aptana New Project wizard
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The ability to load the SmartClient documentation browser and Feature Explorer inside Aptana, alongside your code (though you’ll need a tall screen if you want to arrange things like I have here!). The SmartClient docs also appear inside Aptana’s help system.
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Code Assist on the complete SmartClient API. This feature is similar to the Code Assist / Code Completion / Intellisense features found in most modern IDEs for static languages.
The Code Assist support for SmartClient isn’t yet everything we’d like it to be. For example, there is no code assist for the object literal we commonly pass to the create() function. Passing an object literal with properties is a common pattern in a number of frameworks, however, supporting Code Assist for this will require some Aptana enhancements. We’re reaching out to the Aptana team to see if we can get this working – stay tuned.
The beta version of the plugin is available right now, for those who can’t wait for shiny new tools. Follow these steps:
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Grab the Community Edition of Aptana Studio here
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Download the SmartClient plugin beta here
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Unzip the plugin file into your Aptana “plugins” folder. The “plugins” folder should now contain a subfolder called “com.smartclient.6.5.1″
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Start up Aptana and in the “References” view open up “Global References”. Check the entry for SmartClient 6.5.1
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Enjoy…
Finally, just a couple of screenshots showing the Code Assist in action
Showing the list of available classes in the isc namespace:
Showing the class-level methods and attributes of a SmartClient class:
Showing Aptana recognizing “myVar” as a ListGrid instance, and offering code assist accordingly. Note that we are able to do this, even though we created the reference in the standard SmartClient way (using the create() method), rather than using “new”:
Showing Aptana’s code assist support for name, type and descriptions of function parameters:
Showing code assist for known return types. Here, listGrid.getCellRecord() returns an isc.ListGridRecord (as indeed, the last screenshot shows), so Aptana provides code assist for that class appropriately (you can see the full ListGridRecord API in the SmartClient doc window underneath the code window):
verlsnake
Hello dear SmartClient team !
First of all: Let me express my greatest gratefulness for Your code assist efforts so far
!
Here come my first impressions with the shiny brandnew SmartClient code assist for Eclipse/Aptana:
My environment:
- Eclipse Europa; Version: 3.3.2 (Build id: M20080221-1800)
- Aptana Plugin; Version: 1.0.0.00004
My Impressions/Issues:
- At Eclipse start there’s no global code assist; fix: in “References”-”Global References”, disable/enable “SmartClient 6.5.1 ”
- Under “Show View – Aptana Library Views”, there is a “SmartClient 6.5.1 Documentation” view, but I can NOT discover a “SmartClient 6.5.1 Feature Explorer” view
When pressing F1 on a SC component I can indeed read a short help string in the Eclipse help.
Question: Is there a way to automatically jump into the right location in the integrated “SmartClient 6.5.1 Documentation/Feature Explorer”, too ?
- Code assist for a variable referencing an instantiated SC component seems to work great
! But code assist for references made by “ID” properties does NOT work; will this be supported in the future, too ? Or shall we always use variables in order to have code assist later on ? Then we need to have variables AND IDs, or can we drop IDs completely and use variables in all use cases ?
- You already mention the missing code assist for the properties of an object literal in a create() function; of course this is basic code assist/insight to have ! With support for mandatory/optional properties; and their possible values. Will this come soon ?
- It is wishful to have SmartClient code assist/insight for other tools, too:
!
– Please support IntelliJ IDEA ! Seems to be a powerful IDE for all things web
– NetBeans
Please don’t slow down here – to the contrary, I wish You even accelerate this code assist/insight efforts even more …
Best Regards and Tschüss
Kai
wrussell
Kai,
Thanks for the expert feedback. You sound like you know your way around Aptana.
Many of the questions you raise are outside our control – Aptana has a defined interface for Ajax libraries, and we have to work within that. That said, we hope to be working with the Aptana team to solve at least some of these things.
As for other tools, it’s a definite maybe
We’d obviously like to support every tool out there – what we can actually do is a different matter!
Thanks again for the feedback
verlsnake
Unfortunately I am NOT an Eclipse/Aptana expert … But I had already installed it and played around with it – although only “a little bit” … It is almost unavoidable to have Eclipse/Aptana installed …
And please don’t waste Your/my time with issuing statements like “We’d obviously like to support every tool out there” … That’s an Utopia statement, of course ! IMO IntelliJ IDEA is a very powerful, well-rounded tool out there; therefore I repeat myself: Please support IntelliJ IDEA, too ! Maybe it’s even easier to support the missing features for
IntelliJ IDEA than it is for Eclipse/Aptana …
Your SmartClient approach is one which could give back some hope when it comes to the IT Biz world – from a developer’s perspective in particular
…
claudiobosticco
Great plugin!
Unfortunately, with Aptana Studio standalone, memory usage rises until it becomes useless…it seems this bug:
http://forums.aptana.com/viewtopic.php?t=4759&highlight=memory
claudiobosticco
by the way, I’ve installed Aptana as an Eclipse 3.4 plugin, and it seems that it doesn’t suffer this issue