SBT file editor

[aru...@gmail.com]

The roadmap page shows the following features for 4.5 (see below). I have Scala IDE 4.5, but do not see SBT file editor. When I open a build.sbt file in the IDE, syntax highlighting is not enabled by default. Am I missing something?

4.5.0

Coming features:

• sbt project import. Easy way to start working on sbt project with no need to run sbt eclipse plugin.
• sbt file editor.
• Apache Spark project launcher. Feed with output of project and launch Apache Spark without leaving Scala IDE.

[Rafał Krzewski]

Last time I spoke with Scala IDE developers in person, I've asked a similar question and the reply was "SBT support was abandoned, because it is impossible to implement".

I just hope they were overly dramatic ;) Seriously, though there are very specific technical challenges: SBT project model (eg. .sbt files in root + .scala files in /project, and project/project nesting) are hard to represent in Eclipse Workbench / JDT model.

Without that you can't really have an .sbt file editor with correct classpath management which is in turn needed for auto completion suggestions and errors as you type.

Integrating sbteclipse plugin into the IDE itself is a much more tractable problem, but there is number of corner cases that result in generating incorrect Eclipse project definitions that need to be tweaked by hand. Which, as I understand is the reason the developers were hesitant to work on in.

Cheers,

Rafał