Visual Studio

[ionarawilson1]

Do you guys know of any tutorials, instructions on how to use Visual Studio to write code in Javascript? Thanks!!!

[StephenLead]

I don't use VS but the good folks at StackOverflow have an answer:

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1627194/is-there-a-good-javascript-plugin-for-visual-studio

[RahulMetangale1 · Accepted solution]

Ionara,

Open JavaScript application as a website in Visual Studio.  Some additional settings:
1. Right click on html page and select option set as a start page
2. Right click on html page and set the default browser.
3. You can debug the application using Internet Explorer using breakpoint or debugger keyword.
4. ESRI api also provide code assist plugin for VS 2010.

I hope this helps.

-Rahul

[JeffJacobson]

I would recommend using Chrome as your browser rathern than IE. Firefox's Firebug add-in is pretty good too. (Firefox actually has a built in debugger now, but I haven't used it so I can't say if it is as good as Firebug.)

The only time I would use IE is to make sure the page works in IE.

[StephenLead]

The only time I would use IE is to make sure the page works in IE.

Nothing rings warning bells for a developer like seeing someone on Internet Explorer 7.

[ReneRubalcava]

Install web essentials to make your life easier.
http://visualstudiogallery.msdn.microsoft.com/6ed4c78f-a23e-49ad-b5fd-369af0c2107f

I'm not a big fan of VS, but if you have to tie an app in with some ASP/MVC there are a handful of nuget (install everything via nuget when possible) packages to help. Biggest drawback for me with JS in VS is the custom snippet system is just such a pain.

[ionarawilson1]

Thank you guys for all the ideas! It seems VS is not very popular here. What is the most popular program to write JS? I've heard about Webstorm but never used it. I am trying Aptana 3 but I am very frustrated with the intellisense. Thanks

[StephenLead]

On a Mac I can recommend Espresso. Lots of people use Coda or Sublime Text.

On a PC I've previously used the Free JavaScript Editor. It's reasonable considering it's free!

I'm not sure about an intellisense plugin for the ArcGIS JS API with any of these products - I prefer to free-type personally.

[ionarawilson1]

Thank you Stephen. I will check that but I really like code assist.

[JeffJacobson]

Thank you guys for all the ideas! It seems VS is not very popular here. What is the most popular program to write JS? I've heard about Webstorm but never used it. I am trying Aptana 3 but I am very frustrated with the intellisense. Thanks

Actually, I use Visual Studio 2012 for most of my web development now, with the following extensions installed.

• Web Essentials 2012


• JSLint.VS2012 (Checks for potential errors in JavaScript code.)


• Microsoft Web Developer Tools


• Visual Studio Extensions for Windows Library for JavaScript

I am using the "Premium" edition of VS 2012. I can't guarantee that all of these extensions would work with the free versions.

My second choice would be Aptana 3, which you have already tried.  This is good for situations where I know I won't need to do any server-side ASP.NET code. (I think Aptana it CAN do other types of server side code, but we use ASP.NET for our server-side code in our agency, and as far as I know Aptana can't do ASP.NET.)

While intellisence would be handy, none of the editors I have used seem to support it very well, so I rely mainly on the online documentation for ArcGIS JS API, Dojo, jQuery, etc.