A new JAL Integrated Development Environment suggestion.

[RobJ]

Hi all,

This message was posted on Jallist and Jallib.

I have the following suggestion and am looking for somebody who wants to pick up the challenge.

Nowadays we have 2 JAL Editors/Integrated Development Environments, JalEdit and JALIDE from the hard work of Sunish and Despx.

The 'problem' is that these are Windows based and we also have Linux and MAC users. Next to that time has passed and so there are new options we can explore.

It was suggested some time ago to use Notepad++. I did some tests with syntax highlighting and starting the compiler from Notepad++ and that partly works but it not the solution. It remains a text editor.

So here my suggestion:

We should create a JAL IDE using Visual Studio Code. It is free, multi platform (Windows, Linux. Mac) and offers a lot of features like:

-) A very nice editor made for writing programs

-) Syntax highlighting

-) Snippits (not sure if we need them)

-) Intellisense (autocomplete)

-) Scripts (I assume we can start the compiler using these)

You can make your own JAL extension to make it exactly matching the JAL programming language. Once you have this you can make the extension public and share it with the rest of the world via the extensions market place. And if you want you can install all kind of extensions yourself, e.g. code beautifiers that nicely indent your code.

See: https://code.visualstudio.com/

The only issue is that you need Javascript knowledge  to make the JAL extension (if  I understood that right) and there is some code generation possible but you have to build the customization yourself. This is not my field of expertise (yet).

Up to know I think this is the best jAL IDE alternative covering all platforms with a very professional user interface  and user experience.

So I was wondering if there is anybody who wants to pick up the challenge of creating a Visual Studio Code JAL extension.

Kind regards,

Rob

[Matthew Schinkel]

Everyone likes to use different editors, so it will be hard to get most people to switch.

JalEdit is our current "approved" IDE since it's in our release packages. Does the version from Despx run on multiple platforms? This seems to be the logical choice if bugs are fixed and the code is shared on github.

Matt.

[Sunish Issac]

Dear Rob,

I have already started to work on it, trying hard to understand the nitty gritties. 

IIRC I had posted about it long back stating that would be the way to go. Yes JS/Node knowledge etc is required. We can start with syntax highlighting and gradually add other features. 

I'm in, though I would be able to work in a limited way only on weekends.

We can setup a repo on jaliib and start to work, my git and jal experience is too limited and now with age, learning speed is again limited :-)

But I'm all for going ahead with making a jal extension for VSCode.

Kind regards,

Sunish

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[vasi vasi]

Well, I'm using Visual Studio Code in developing STM32 projects. My Visual Pin Configurator application generates projects for VSCode, including the required configuration files in the hidden folder needed by VSCode. For Jal I use Geany IDE, but no problem in switching to an already very familiar IDE.

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Vasi

[vasi vasi]

Thank you Sunish, I also think you are the best man for this project!

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Vasi

[Rob CJ]

Hi Sunish,

Good to hear. Age is just a number. Yes we could make a separate repository on Jallib on Github.

I like your agile approach in starting with highlighting first.

Good luck with your initiative. If you have something I could test just let me know.

Met vriendelijke groet,

Rob Jansen

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From: jal...@googlegroups.com <jal...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of vasi vasi <fun...@gmail.com>
Sent: Tuesday, June 9, 2020 7:25:49 AM
To: jal...@googlegroups.com <jal...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: [jallib] A new JAL Integrated Development Environment suggestion.

 

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/jallib/CABsDq%3D8Tqgpb74tMqZNteZ7_v8okLziYJZKtjEFDv0oM0gofEQ%40mail.gmail.com.

[Rob CJ]

Hi Matt,

Correct. The reason for this idea is to make starting with JAL easier by offering an IDE on multiple platforms. 

If you only use an Editor you still have to start the compiler and in case of problems you have to manually open the file where the error is and go to the line where the error is (JalEdit and JALIDE immediately open that file and jump to that line) so having only an editor and a separate call to the compiler is less user friendly. 

Next to that (another idea) is whether it would be possible to extend this IDE with real debugging facilities. With the Pickit3 (I assume also with others) and MPLABX you can set breakpoints and stop the execution. I assume there would be some API on the Pickit3 that makes this possible. Would it not be great if you could set a breakpoint in your JAL source code, stop the execution at your breakpoint and inspect registers and data area of the PIC? Just another idea that would make your JAL live easier.

Kind regards,

Rob

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Van: jal...@googlegroups.com <jal...@googlegroups.com> namens Matthew Schinkel <mattsc...@hotmail.com>
Verzonden: maandag 8 juni 2020 21:24
Aan: jallib <jal...@googlegroups.com>
Onderwerp: [jallib] Re: A new JAL Integrated Development Environment suggestion.

 

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