XamarinStudio MonoDevelop language binding addin available NOW

[Ben Cooley]

Announcing the first release of the PlayScript MonoDevelop addin.

The addin currently may be found here:

https://s3.amazonaws.com/playscript/PlayScriptBinding.mpack

Install Instructions:

1. Install the 4.0.4 (current) release of Xamarin Studio.
2. Download the addin mpack file (above).
3. Open Xamarin Studio, and select the "Add-in Manager.." from the main menu.
4. Click on the "Install from File.." button on the bottom left of the addin panel.
5. Browse to the PlayScriptBinding.mpack file, and select "Install".

The addin will be installed and immediately functional.

This first version of the PlayScript language binding for Xamarin Studio supports the following:

- Intellisense/Code Completion
- Navigation to declarations, references
- Refactoring (rename class, variable)
- Error highlighting for both ActionScript and PlayScript files.
- Whatever else the CSharp binding does that we just copied and patched to work with PlayScript.

Known Issues:

- Currently we do not provide project templates for iOS or Android mobile projects in the .psproj playscript project.  You will still need to create regular .csproj C# projects and add .as and .play files to these projects.
- The current addin still will not search for the "playscript" compiler install folder to use the new "playc.exe" compiler.
- There are still some minor issues with code completion (the underlying engine still assumes some C# idioms), but generally it works very well.

Future work:

- We will be embedding an installation of the compiler (now playc.exe) and the core runtime libraries, along with simple template projects. 
- The addin will be moving to the MonoDevelop Addins repository for easier installation (right now you will have to manually browse to the plugin file after downloading it).

[Ben Cooley]

NOTE: This binding is as of yet "Untested" on windows.

[Ben Cooley]

Confirmed that the windows version did not work because Windows IDE is still at 4.0.3.

Here is the Windows plugin for 4.0.3:

https://s3.amazonaws.com/playscript/PlayScriptBinding-4.0.3.mpack

Confirmed working on Windows.

I did see an issue loading large C# projects after installing the plugin.  If you experience problems loading a C# solution after installing the plugin, you can temporarily disable the plugin by going to Addins-Manager..  selecting the plugin and clicking the "Disable" button.   

[IngweLand]

I did not install on Windows for me. After restarting Xamarin Studio I got following error (attached)

[Ben Cooley]

I'll look into that issue.

[Ben Cooley]

The issue is fixed in the latest Windows build here:

https://s3.amazonaws.com/playscript/PlayScriptBinding-4.0.3.mpack

Please try re-installing this version and let me know if everything is working.

As an added bonus, we've re-enabled most of the advanced functionality in this version of the plugin.  Code generation is still using C# syntax, but everything works.

We are busy separating out the compiler into a separate "playc" compiler install to eliminate the need to use a separate mono framework.  Once this is complete, you should be able to compile the PlayScript "playc" compiler and libraries separately, and also get the built in "playc" compiler just by installing the AddIn from the addins panel.

[Matt Summers]

Awesome looking forward to the compiler update.

[Leng Sheng Hong]

this is very nice!

[IngweLand]

Same error. I have to mention that there is an error during installation itself (but it does not display what kind of error, it simply tells that Installation fails. But after restarting XS, that dialog with error popup and Playscript Add-in can be found in Add-ins manager). I tried to run XS as administrator, but it did not help

[IngweLand]

I think there is some conflict with CSharp Language Bindings Add-in. For example, if i disable it, the installation of Playscript add-in does not throw error. However, when I restart XS, both c# and ps add-ins are marked as disabled. Also, when everything is enabled, and I install ps add-in, then restart XS, then go to add-in manager and disable c# add-in, ps add-in is marked as disabled at the same moment too.   

[Ben Cooley]

I found that it works when you install without an existing project or solution being loaded. 

I am also going through the code presently and making sure there are no more overlaps with the C# plugin.

[Ben Cooley]

Also Ingwe, we did update the plugin package to make sure there were no name clashes with the C# plugin last week (our first pass).  Can you make sure you've re-download the latest Windows plugin.  You'll need to fully uninstall the previous plugin and re-install the latest one.

[IngweLand]

I tried to install the add-in on the machine which has newly installed Xamarin studio (it was installed the first time on that computer) and everything works. So, I assume that something is not absolutely good with Xamarin studio on my main machine (though I even reinstalled it).

[Ben Cooley]

It is really dependent on when the C# plugin was last used, as that conflict in the code formatting policies shows up when there's an existing policy there from C#.  

I'm going to focus on that bug over the weekend, as that's really the last remaining blocker to enabling the PlayScript addin directly from the Xamaran Studio addin repository (the one that shows up in the Addin's menu item).

[IngweLand]

Well, maybe, I just want to say that technically I was managed to install the plugin without errors. But only on new machine. I can not guarantee that this issue is not only on my machine. If you get other issue reports like this, then OK. If no - maybe this was something wrong on my computer.

[Ben Cooley]

I've gotten that same error intermittently.  The latest version of MD has some fixes in the formatting policy code, so I'm hoping that this resolves this error.  If not, I'll need to dig deeper.  

We're working on the iOS, Android, and Mac plugins, so before we finally pull the plug and publish these I'll drill down and fix this bug.

[IngweLand]

I tested on my main computer (where i was not able to install the plugin previously) with latest XS (which is 4.0.5 right now) - still no luck. But again, this may be due to some glitches in XS installation.

[Ben Cooley]

4.0.5 upgraded the NRefactory library to a newer version.  Since we're sharing NRefactory with the CSharp plugin, that broke us.

Not a big deal though.  We have a pretty good script for upgrading the plugin every time Xamarin does a major upgrade, but just re-applying the PlayScript patches.  I've upgraded and re-applied the patches for 4.0.5 and checked that into the playscript-monodevelop repository, but there were one or two blocker bugs that prevented me from updating the plugins related to some sort of "unable to find type" issue.   

In the future we might want to use our own NRefactory to avoid having to re-patch if Xamarin upgrades theirs, but for now it doesn't seem to be a big deal.

In any case, as soon as I've fixed that final type loading bug I'll re-post the plugin.

We also do have the plugins working on the Mono Add-Ins site, but we don't yet have the templates for Android and iOS, so I want to delay flipping the switch on those until we have the whole flow tested and working.