DaveOnCode » eclipse

Extending Eclipse using JavaScript and Monkey Script engine

Davide Zanotti — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 16:20:50 +0000

I was wondering how to wrap a string with quotes in Eclipse by using a shortcut, then I realized that there is not such command, so I started thinking for a solution and initially I created an Aptana’s snippet, but I was not satisfied, because I want to have an handy shortcut to invoke my snippet. By googling, I discovered Eclipse Monkey Script engine, that is an extremely powerful tool for every JavaScript developer who wants to extend Eclipse features by writing few lines of JavaScript code. In order to use the js engine, you must have the package org.eclipse.eclipsemonkey (which is installed by default by Aptana) installed. Unfortunately I can’t find a complete and exhaustive reference for this project, which seems forgotten by authors, so I learnt what I know reading different posts.
Basically, Monkey Script allow developers to access editor’s instance, get selected test, get document content, edit it and update it. Moreover is possible to print text to consol, read and create files on the filesystem… and finally the scripts created will be accessible from Eclipse menu (under “Scripts”) and invokable through user defined shortcut… really nice!
So, backing to my experiment, I created this monkey script:

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39

/*
* Key: M1+M2+C
* Menu: Custom Scripts > Wrap with double quotes
* DOM: http://download.eclipse.org/technology/dash/update/org.eclipse.eclipsemonkey.lang.javascript
* Kudos: Davide Zanotti
*/
function main() {

// no editor... exit
if (typeof editors.activeEditor == "undefined") {

return alert("No active editor");

}

// get a reference to the editor in use
var editor = editors.activeEditor;

// beginning of text selection
var startOffset = editor.selectionRange.startingOffset;

// end of text selection
var endOffset = editor.selectionRange.endingOffset;

// selected text
var selection = editor.source.substring(startOffset, endOffset);

try {

// surround selection with quotes
editor.applyEdit(startOffset, endOffset - startOffset, '"' + selection + '"');

} catch (e) {

alert("Error " + e.code + ": " + e.message);

}

};

It’s important to notice some points, first you MUST write an “header” using the comment syntax “/* */” into which you MUST declare at least 2 parameter: the “Menu” path (you can nest several menu items by writing several “>”) and the “DOM” package (which allows you to access specific objects like “editors“). You can write several js functions, but you must provide a main() function, which is called automatically by Eclipse once you launch your script, otherwise you can call the main function as you like but you must then provide the “OnLoad” param in the header, specifying which function will be called.
To define a shortcut you can use the “Key” parameter and define your own keys combination by choosing among the four modifiers: M1, M2, M3, M4, that are a platform-independent way of representing keys (these stand for ALT, COMMAND, CTRL, and SHIFT). The strange (at least to me) parameter “Kudos” is used to declare the author of the monkey script.
To test my little script or create your own, you have simply to create a new project into Eclipse by calling it as you like (ie: “custom-extensions”), then create a “scripts” folder into which you will save your .js files… that’s all, try yourself and enjoy :)

This is how it looks:

eclipse monkey script menu

ps: I’m going to explore the Monkey Script API in order to write more complex and useful extensions :P

Installing Eclipse + Aptana + Subclipse SVN

Davide Zanotti — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 21:18:14 +0000

Recently I’ve updated my Eclipse version and I installed certain plugin which has created some kind of conflict and confusion in my workspace. What I was trying to do was installing an SVN plugin in order to work on a google code SVN repository, but I had several errors and I lost several hours trying to figure out what was wrong. So I decided to do a fresh and clean installation, once understood the problem. So, I would like to write a sort of tutorial which will explain how to get a sound and working installation of Eclipse, Aptana and Subclipse (which as far I read, is actually the best plugin available for SVN on Eclipse).

Install Eclipse

If you have already Eclipse installed, backup your workspace folder somewhere, then delete eclipse installation folder and the old workspace (you will use the old projects folder after by skipping the “.metadata” folder that is the place where Eclipse stores informations about settings and plugins installed). Go to http://eclipse.org/downloads/ and download the Eclipse edition you prefer (I use Eclipse Classic), after extracting the archive, place folder “eclipse” where you like (usually “Programs” folder on windows and “Applications” on Mac). Create a link to the executable file on your desktop (or Mac OS X dock), then launch the program. Since this is the first time you run Eclipse, it will ask where to locate the workspace, choose the destination and folder name you prefer (I use “eclipse-workspace” under my documents). Ok, at this point you should see a welcome screen, close it and choose Help > Install new software… from the top menu (we are going to install Aptana).

Install Aptana

Click on Add… and paste this url in the “Location” field: “http://download.aptana.org/tools/studio/plugin/install/studio” (don’t paste quotes!), write a name for the location entered (I simply called it “Aptana”). Go on, selecting Aptana packages check-boxes and clicking on Next, then accept the terms and click on Finish. It will takes several seconds, then Eclipse will inform you that installation is complete and it will suggest you to restart the program… obey!

Install Subclipse (through Aptana)

Ok, we have Aptana installed and running into Eclipse, now we can select Help > Install Aptana Features from the top menu, then select Others > SCM Plugins > Subclipse and from here select the following package: Core SVNKit library, Optional JNA library, Subclipse. After the routine “next, agree, finish, restart” we have now our beloved ide ready to be used!

IDE configuration

Now that all the stuff is installed, we should spent some time to configure it properly, depending on our needs and taste. Eclipse is a complex and powerfull software and is it possible to set a lot of options: font used, colors, code suggestion, indentation, code collapsing, autoupdate, file encoding, workspace and a lot more. If you never take an in depth look at the preferences panel, I suggest you to spent at list 5 minutes… it deserve the time spent!

Possible issues and resolutions

- If during installation an alert saying “WARNING: you are installing software that contains unsigned content” will appear, just choose ok and you shouldn’t get any problems.

- If you get problems to download from the update site(s), maybe you are blocked by a firewall, you should go to Window > Preferences > General > Network and set the right proxy configuration. If you don’t know how to configure it, you can download the archive version (a .jar or .zip file containing all plugin’s packages) from vendor site.

- If you are trying to add a new SVN repository (by using the installed Subclipse plugin) and you get an error saying “RA layer request failed“, go to Window > Preferences > Team > SVN and in the “SVN interface” choose SVNKit as client instead of JavaHL (default option)… this should solve the problem (in my case it did). If you still get that error or a similar one, maybe is due to firewall limitations, if you can’t change the configuration properly… google and good luck :^)

Eclipse: convert upper case text to lower case and viceversa with a simple shortcut

Davide Zanotti — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 15:02:36 +0000

This is just a quick post to share these 2 little shortcuts to convert text from lower case to uppercase and viceversa in Eclipse.

Lower case: CTRL+SHIFT+Y (CMD+SHIFT+Y on Mac OS X)
Upper case: CTRL+SHIFT+X (CMD+SHIFT+X on Mac OS X)

In both the combination you can select one or more character to convert.

Aptana’s Javascript editor is too cool!

Davide Zanotti — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 15:03:38 +0000

I’ve just discovered that the last version of the Aptana Studio (in my case the Eclipse plugin version) has an integrated support for javadoc syntax inside js files. The beauty of this feature is that, once you have defined a function, you can just type /** and press enter and Aptana will generate automatically all the comments for you:

Furthermore it will show tips including parameters description when you will use your previous defined function:

…and if you want to add extra “@tag”, the editor will suggest you all tags available:

Too cool!!! I love Aptana :-)

Associate custom file extensions to the default Aptana’s text editor

Davide Zanotti — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 13:06:16 +0000

In a project which I’m working on, the team make an intensive use of text file to include with SSI, and these files are named conventionally .inc, Aptana by default opens these custom extensions with the default system’s editor (notepad on windows). We can tell Aptana to open the .inc or whatever extension we want with the Aptana’s text editor by simply doing the following: Choose window/preferences/Aptana/Editors/Generic Text, click add and then type our desired extension (in my case *.inc). Now if we double click over a .inc file in the project tree view, it will be opened inside Aptana.
ps. The path to the settings panel may change according to the version of Aptana/Eclipse installed (I’m using the Aptana plugin for Eclipse 3.4.1)