javascript and Intellisense

member4953 · April 1st, 2009, 04:45 PM

This is a question of curiosity.

On p. 304 where the JavaScript is being added, Intellisense seems to be kind of schizophrenic in that it shows some items, but not others. Also, the automatic formatting is missing, even when "Format Document" is invoked. Is this just a matter of Microsoft not including capabilities or is there something more fundamental going on?

I am clearly getting spoiled by having all the help from Visual Studio and miss it immediately when it is not there!

Thomas

Imar · April 1st, 2009, 05:49 PM

Are you using the latest service pack (SP1)? With that, I find that autoformat works well for me.

With regards to IntelliSense: it depends on what you're not seeing... ;-) IntelliSense in JavaScript is, due to the nature of JavaScript, not as perfect as it is for VB and C#. What are you expecting to see but not seeing?

Imar

member4953 · April 3rd, 2009, 11:20 AM

Imar,

I waited until I got to another javascript example to answer this.

I am using the latest SP, Version 3.5 SP1.

On p. 345 when I enter the function HelloWorld and the braces, and click Edit=>Advanced=>Format Document the function is not indented within the script tags. Typing code within the function does not indent. I am just used to it indenting. Not a big deal.

When adding the javascript Intellisense does not know about "yourName", even after compiling, but does know about "NameService". It also does not know about, or offer for fillin, "txtYourName" or "btnSayHello".

As I said, not a big deal, but the IntelliSense seems so sophisticated that I really miss not having it. Of course, I have written a little bit of assembler code and VS2008 is somewhat better.

Thomas

Imar · April 4th, 2009, 06:00 AM

It depends on what you expect from IntelliSense. Some of the stuff you mention won't work at all.

For example, txtYourName and btnSayHello are *HTML* controls and as such are not directly accessible in JavaScript (and thus not in IntelliSense). However, using something like:

Code:

 
document.getElementById('txtYourName')

would give you IntelliSense and offer properties like value.

Compilation is not an issue here; building the site compiles server side code; not client side code.

Indention works fine for me in the WebServices.aspx file, so maybe you have a layout issue or code error in that page so VWD can't correcly format the document?

For some more info on what (and what not) to expect from JavaScript IntelliSense:

http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archi...ellisense.aspx
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb385674.aspx
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb385682.aspx

Cheers,

Imar