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This project will remain in its current state, but is being replaced by the TM1Code - VS Code extension project:
viewtopic.php?f=3&t=15758
I just don't have the time to develop both in parallel.
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Hi Everyone,
After my last Notepad++ plugin project I was left wanting something with more robust syntax highlighting out of the box. I personally can't stand developing in a web browser (although that is the current trend), but connecting to the rest api with standard desktop languages (C/C++) proved more trouble than it was really worth. This led me down the path of building out a tool that I could actually use myself.
My design goals were relatively straightforward:
- Simple, clean interface
- As few dependencies as possible
- Webapp with a desktop feel
- Easy to extend functionality
- Intellisense and syntax highlighting
- FREE: It's almost 2021, we shouldn't have to pay for licenses for simple tools
Through a little research, I finally settled on the Electron framework to provide a desktop feel to my webapp. It was extremely straightforward, and I'm honestly quite surprised there isn't a bigger push to develop apps using frameworks like it (at least in our tiny space of the IT world). Electron also allows me to easily integrate this with ElectronForge for easy installer creation - I have used this to deploy to my dev box and it's pretty slick. For intellisense I used Monaco, which is what powers Microsoft's Visual Studio Code editor. All that was left was to create the syntax and intellisense files and string everything together. All-in-all this was about a 1.5 week build, so it lacks quite a few features, but should hopefully demonstrate the potential and possibly pique some other developers' interests
.Things it does:
- Intellisense:
- intellisense.png (23.15 KiB) Viewed 7735 times
- documentation.png (18.22 KiB) Viewed 7735 times
- autocomplete.png (7.86 KiB) Viewed 7735 times
- Full syntax highlighting and code browsing on the right hand side
* I ran out of image space so I could only upload 3 screenshots
Things it doesn't do:
- No CAM support yet, although this is extremely easy to implement
- No TI support yet
- Not much in the way of error handling currently
How to use it:
* You will need npm installed
- Clone the project from the github site: https://github.com/bgregs514/tm1_ide
- Open a powershell prompt in the root of the folder
- Run the command "npm start" (without double quotes)
- The config file will be created in /Users/[User]/AppData/Roaming/ElectronTest/configuration.json - edit this
This project has been a lot more fun than I initially thought it would be. I have been using this tool for day-to-day rule edits for a few weeks now, and it's worked out surprisingly well. It's definitely rough and has some half baked features in it (like the alternate hierarchy viewer), but it performs rule saves without any issues once it is configured.
While it has been fun, I must admit that the technology itself just isn't that exciting to me personally, and I have largely lost interest in providing updates to this one. If anyone does plan on extending this for their own use, go right ahead, just don't forget to leave a shout-out for me somewhere in the source code
. As always, if there is interest in this project, I would be happy to add features and support - I just don't see myself adding anything new if it's only me using it.Thanks again for reading, and enjoy!
), but now that I'm back I should be able to get some updates rolling out on this again. For those that are interested, here's what I'm planning to target for the next batch of updates:
). I really like this approach for its many tangible benefits in terms of ease of rollout, fewer dependencies, etc., as well as my own selfish reasons (I don't have to worry about the GUI...seriously, CSS/HTML and the battle over pixel placement always makes my head hurt). The only downsides that I can see is that we are somewhat confined to what VS Code offers in terms of a GUI (not really a huge negative, and an exposed API makes integration much easier), and that the core logic will need to be rewritten in TypeScript. JavaScript is offered as an option, but given that VS Code is written in TS to begin with, I'd like to keep things as vanilla as possible. TypeScript is a new world for me, so I expect there will be a slight ramp up time to get something worth sharing created.