In the Eclipse LS editor in the “Objects” panel, it shows a list of global variables from Declarations. This is pretty nice. This “nice to have” is to add a list of dimmed variables to the other “events”, Initialize and user-defined functions in particular. Then while coding a large Agent one would not have to keep returning to the top of the code to see if a particular variable exists, or what type it is.
Overall the Eclipse LS editor is light-years ahead of the previous one. It has many of the features I’ve seen everyone pining for since I started LS development over twelve years ago. It also has a few new “features” that aren’t as desirable. (wry grin) But those don’t prevent it from being a dramatic improvement.
Sure I could put this on IdeaJam, but I’m already logged in here, so here it is. If IdeaJam was tied to this login so I could just pop over there I’d do it.
Subject: What features does it have that are so great?
I turned it off because it was trouble, and I haven’t been able to turn it back onEDIT: I finally found the setting.
The debugger seemed to be the same debugger that hasn’t been updated in 15 years…except that it was causing more problems than the non Eclipse debugger.
I could see a better debugger being great, but what could they do in the editor? I mean, split script editing screen would be nice…like other development systems. That would be nice. Regular expressions would be nice too.
Subject: I sepecifically included only the editor in this praise…
But it does finally show class elements and methods, and clicking on them places the code in a viewable position, instead of putting the first line of the method at the bottom of the screen where one is forced to scroll to see it. This dramatically improves OO coding.
It does show errors very quickly … if one pastes in a bunch of code (couple hundred lines) and edits quite a bit, so they don’t know what variables are still being used, simply comment out the Dim statement. If no red marks show up on the right edge it’s safe to delete them. This is pretty nice, and why I’d like to see Dimmed variables in Initialize and such, so Agent coding may take advantage of this, and the sodden developer can see at a glance just what’s available and its data type.
It finally allows one to save LotusScript code that’s got errors, instead of forcing the developer to manually manage that with REM blocks. Man that was the pits.
It onlly appears to apply formatting to new code … editing existing code, where the develoer has fixed the sometimes horrible formatting, does not get automagically eradicated each and every edit.
These are just what comes off the top of my head. I’m sure I could find numerous others.
I agree there is work yet to be done (believe me i could write a novel on it), but not seeing the advantages of what’s been done is just not right.
I changed the preferences to use the Eclipse LS editor, but it still looks like it’s using the old editor.
The changes you listed wouldn’t matter to me…but that’s just because of my style of coding…mine’s a very subjective view.
I have forms with lots of LS and what I need most is to see the code from two different subs at the same time. That function has been a part of development environments since before Notes existed.
The indenting in the Eclipse LS editor is completely buggered up. This is a HUGE PITA for me and one I cannot, for the life of me, understand how it slipped into the released product.
Subject: Personally I like that fact that it doesn’t autoindent for me
…however, it still manages to screw with my code by putting End if’s at a different indent level than the opening if, for example (and it’s not consequent, happens only once in a while, when it gets confused)
But “normal” eclipse functionality for formatting works, for example marking several lines of LS at once, and indenting all at once with the tab key.
What I probably use most in the DDE is F3 (or go to function). This makes it so easy to track code trough nested script libraries.