Eclipse Plugin for Brightscript

"TheEndless" wrote:

On a side note (or maybe related?), it doesn't seem to like the "?" shortcut for "print". It might be a coincidence, but each of the files that wouldn't load contained at least one "?" line. 3.6.2 marks them all as invalid syntax.

Yes, more than likely, the "?" print shortcut was omitted from the parser grammar... I had constructed the parser grammar by going through the BrightScript reference guide section by section, and the section on the Print command doesn't mention the shortcut (it shows up later in the guide in the examples and in the debugger help). I'll have that corrected in the next release.

"TheEndless" wrote:

I also can't seem to get code folding to work. Is there some trick to it? I'm new to Eclipse, so please excuse my ignorance, but should I be seeing +/- icon or something to fold a section?

With the current beta release, only comments can be folded. I should be able to get code folding fixed by the next release.
And BTW... comment folding is not turned on by default, has a bad default value for minimum lines threshold, and requires that the "Join Comments separated by empty lines" option be checked on in order to work (yes, that last bit is a known bug).

To turn comment folding on, goto: Window->Preferences->BrightScript->Editor->Folding, and:
Set the value for "Minimum lines required to enable folding" to 2 or greater, and check on the options for: "Join Comments Separated by empty lines"

Since we're on topic, what types of code structures would you like to see be fold-able?

I'm currently thinking: Subs/Functions and control blocks (if/then/else, while, for).

Should I extend this to array/associative array definitions as well?

Cheers

"malloys" wrote:
Since we're on topic, what types of code structures would you like to see be fold-able?

I'm currently thinking: Subs/Functions and control blocks (if/then/else, while, for).

Should I extend this to array/associative array definitions as well?

I'd like it on associative arrays at least.

I'm not sure if it matters, but there seems to be a lot of leeway in acceptable BrightScript syntax. For example, "End If / EndIf", "Else If / ElseIf", "For...Next / For...End For" are all valid, but aren't necessarily documented as such. I get sporadic highlighting/syntax errors when using various combinations of them in Eclipse. For the most part, VBScript syntax highlighting and code folding recognize these in Notepad++, so that might be a worthwhile reference point.

One other issue I've run across... The RSP Console window seems a bit spastic. The drop down with IP addresses isn't wide enough to show the full address, and it's constantly refreshing (constant as in every 500ms or so), so I can't seem to select any specific addresses. When I click the down arrow to pick one, it refreshes and ends up selecting the second address (I have three in the list) every time. If I highlight the text to type in an address, it refreshes two quickly for me to do so.

Now that I can actually open my files, this is looking pretty sweet. Thanks for putting the time and effort into it, and for listening to feedback!

"TheEndless" wrote:

"malloys" wrote:
Since we're on topic, what types of code structures would you like to see be fold-able?

I'm currently thinking: Subs/Functions and control blocks (if/then/else, while, for).

Should I extend this to array/associative array definitions as well?

I'd like it on associative arrays at least.

You got it. Consider those added.

"TheEndless" wrote:

I'm not sure if it matters, but there seems to be a lot of leeway in acceptable BrightScript syntax. For example, "End If / EndIf", "Else If / ElseIf", "For...Next / For...End For" are all valid, but aren't necessarily documented as such. I get sporadic highlighting/syntax errors when using various combinations of them in Eclipse. For the most part, VBScript syntax highlighting and code folding recognize these in Notepad++, so that might be a worthwhile reference point.

Fortunately, my contacts at Roku have given me access to the Roku box's source code, so I plan on examining the box's parser grammar and using that as a reference for the plugin's parser grammar going forward, rather than relying solely on the BrightScript Language Reference guide (as I have to-date).

"TheEndless" wrote:

One other issue I've run across... The RSP Console window seems a bit spastic. The drop down with IP addresses isn't wide enough to show the full address, and it's constantly refreshing (constant as in every 500ms or so), so I can't seem to select any specific addresses. When I click the down arrow to pick one, it refreshes and ends up selecting the second address (I have three in the list) every time. If I highlight the text to type in an address, it refreshes two quickly for me to do so.

Yeah, just spotted this issue today myself (and related to something I mention in a previous post about the SSDP code and a race condition with eclipse's plugin startup).
I should have that corrected in the next release.

"TheEndless" wrote:

Now that I can actually open my files, this is looking pretty sweet. Thanks for putting the time and effort into it, and for listening to feedback!

Thanks much - there's lot's more on the to-do list and Roku seems pretty interested in having me continue to improve the plugin.
Please, by all means, let me know of any suggestions for new features, improvements to existing ones, and of course any bugs you may encounter.

Cheers

Two last feature requests/observations, then I'll zip it (for the day)... 😉

I'm not sure if it's possible for a plugin to do this or not, but there's one feature that I use a lot in both Notepad++ and in Visual Studio that doesn't appear to be available in Eclipse. When highlighting a word, all other instances of that word are also highlighted in a lighter color. This makes it really easy to identify everywhere a variable is used in a file. In Visual Studio it's limited to the current scope of the highlighted variable, whereas in Notepad++ it's every occurrence. While the former is definitely handy, I'm kind of partial to the latter. Along those same lines, I've noticed that double-clicking a word highlights all non-whitespace, whereas ideally, it would stop at any non-word character instead (a period, to be more specific). Both of these are probably core Eclipse functionality, and not something you have control over, but I thought it worth mentioning, as they're two features that are pretty important to my development style/comfort.

"TheEndless" wrote:
Two last feature requests/observations, then I'll zip it (for the day)... 😉

I'm not sure if it's possible for a plugin to do this or not, but there's one feature that I use a lot in both Notepad++ and in Visual Studio that doesn't appear to be available in Eclipse. When highlighting a word, all other instances of that word are also highlighted in a lighter color. This makes it really easy to identify everywhere a variable is used in a file. In Visual Studio it's limited to the current scope of the highlighted variable, whereas in Notepad++ it's every occurrence. While the former is definitely handy, I'm kind of partial to the latter. Along those same lines, I've noticed that double-clicking a word highlights all non-whitespace, whereas ideally, it would stop at any non-word character instead (a period, to be more specific). Both of these are probably core Eclipse functionality, and not something you have control over, but I thought it worth mentioning, as they're two features that are pretty important to my development style/comfort.

Good ideas - I'll add these to the to-do list.
I'm pretty sure I had the "automatically highlight all other instances on select" feature working at one point early in development (last year), but it appears it's been broken.
The "select only to non-word character boundaries on double-click" is definitely something under plugin control. I'll likely make this something configurable by adding a section or page to the user preferences.

Plugin doesn't like the 3.0 Library statement:

Library "v30/bslCore.brs"

Syntax error: unexpected token "Library" <ID>, expected one of "Sub", or "Function"

"jbrave" wrote:
Plugin doesn't like the 3.0 Library statement:

Library "v30/bslCore.brs"

Syntax error: unexpected token "Library" <ID>, expected one of "Sub", or "Function"

Good catch - I'll add that to the to-do list for the parser.
FYI, I haven't re-reviewed the core language guide since 2.8, so there are bound to be more language elements missing from the parser grammar.

"malloys" wrote:

"MidnightJava" wrote:

3. The telnet console doesn't work. I enter the local IP address of my roku box, and it doesn't do anything. I successfully side-loaded the box, so I know the plug-in can see it. I see the progress monitor for a user job as soon as I enter the IP address for the roku box in the deploy wizard, but the telnet console doesn't seem to be able to connect. Also the drop-down combo in the console where I enter the IP address is only one character wide. I have to scroll through horizontally to read the IP address one character at a time.

This is a known issue that should be fixed in the next release.
Although it allows you to enter an IP address, you shouldn't have to enter the IP address of a Roku box in the console dropdown - the plugin should automatically be able to query for them and list the IP address(es) automatically.

However...
There is a known race condition (with the plugin startup) bug which prevents the SSDP query mechanism from working correctly, so it falls back to relying on the Roku box SSDP 1-per-minute unsolicited broadcast.

Until the bug is fixed in the next release, you should wait a little while (in theory, at most 1+ minute) after the BrightScript console is becomes visible for the plugin to see the 1-per-minute unsolicited SSDP broadcast from the roku box. The plugin should eventually see that broadcast, and then add the IP address to the console window for you.

The console does not receive the IP address of the roku no matter how long I wait. Sniffing with Wireshark, I see the M-SEARCH requests from the plug-in and roku's 200 OK response, but I do not see the NOTIFY messages coming from roku. I assume the M-SEARCH response is not being consumed by the console UI due to the race condition you mentioned. As to why the NOTIFY messages are not appearing, I'm not sure.

The roku is connected via wired connection to a wireless router. Eclipse is running on a laptop connected to the same router wirelessly (with the laptop and roku box in the same subnet). In the router, I turned on port forwarding for port 1900 to the laptop, and I temporarily turned off the software firewall on the laptop; but I still don't see any SSDP NOTIFY messages. Perhaps I need some additional setting on the router to enable UPnP-- I'll check it again this evening.

However, some other posts on this forum seem to say that the proper behavior for SSDP-advertised services is for the server to send out NOTIFY messages only when it first come up. I did try re-starting the roku, and didn't see any NOTIFY messages. Are you sure that roku sends NOTIFY messages continuously every minute?

"MidnightJava" wrote:
... Are you sure that roku sends NOTIFY messages continuously every minute?

Yes, for the 2 units I own ( pre Roku 2, running firmware version 2.8 ), I see NOTIFY messages from both boxes every minute or so.
And... According to the External Control Guide doc in the SDK (up to and including the 3.0 version of the doc), that's expected:
"... we multicast NOTIFY messages periodically (currently once per minute, but this may change)."

So, you've most likely got something in/on your network that prevents you from seeing the multicast broadcast NOTIFY messages.
Could be your router (not forwarding multicast traffic) or something filtering in-bound multicast traffic on your computer's network adapter.

FWIW, I've personally experienced one specific VPN configuration that un-intentionally filtered/blocked *all* multicast traffic (and therefore the Roku boxen's SSDP NOTIFY messages). The VPN sysadmin's intention was to prevent multicast traffic from traversing in and out of his network, but the VPN software (or possibly just a misconfiguration) was filtering out multicast traffic even from local subnet to local subnet. The moment I disconnected from that particular VPN, I started seeing the Roku SSDP NOTIFY messages again.

Not intending to hijack, but feel free to direct me elsewhere if I am...

With Eclipse, is there any way to open a project instead of a workspace? I have two different machines I regularly develop on, so my source is all stored on a network share. I'm able to mount the share on my laptop, but I get a "workspace is in use" error everytime I try to open it. It'd be much easier to either open a project, or be able to use a file system browser directly in Eclipse. I tried the Remote System Explorer plugin, but that complained about a missing daemon running on the server hosting the share. I suppose I could figure out what daemon is missing and install it, but that seems like overkill when I can browse and open the individual files directly via the mounted share. Am I missing something obvious?

I really want a unified development/build environment across machines, and this Eclipse plugin seems like exactly what can provide that (one's a PC, the other's a Mac), but every time I try to use it, I run into some new little annoyance that my OCD refuses to allow me to workaround.