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I'm looking for the best JavaScript editor available as an Eclipse plugin. I've been using Spket which is good. But, is there more better one?

Ripon Al Wasim
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Dónal
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8 Answers8

55

Eclipse HTML Editor Plugin

I too have struggled with this totally obvious question. It seemed crazy that this wasn't an extremely easy-to-find feature with all the web development happening in Eclipse these days.

I was very turned off by Aptana because of how bloated it is, and the fact that it starts up a local web server (by default on port 8000) everytime you start Eclipse and you can't disable this functionality. Adobe's port of JSEclipse is now a 400Mb plugin, which is equally insane.

However, I just found a super-lightweight JavaScript editor called Eclipse HTML Editor Plugin, made by Amateras, which was exactly what I was looking for.

Lii
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Cory
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    +1: Eclipse HTML Editor Plugin installation is very simple and straight-forward. – Leftium Nov 07 '11 at 05:45
  • Couldn't tell by looking, does this have Javascript library content assist for Ext-JS 4? – Dave Feb 16 '12 at 22:30
  • It looks like this plugin hasn't been updated since February, 2011. – Jacob Marble Sep 24 '12 at 04:31
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    Right @JacobMarble, it is not working in juno! sad :-( – Vikas Nov 22 '12 at 11:54
  • And totally unhappy with Aptana's behavior as @Cory said. – Vikas Nov 22 '12 at 11:57
  • Anyway http://www.eclipse.org/webtools/jsdt/ looks perfect! – Vikas Nov 22 '12 at 12:18
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    There's an update to Eclipse HTML editor for Juno Support as of 12/28/2012 – dimo414 Jan 29 '13 at 23:17
  • Can someone give a link to the update site, that we could use to add the plugin to eclipse from the update manager? – despot Feb 10 '13 at 09:21
  • Forget it... I just found that I could validate the javascript by creating a new javascript project in eclipse. Btw, inserting the downloaded Eclipse HTML Editor plugin jar into ECLIPSE_HOME/plugins didn't work for me (this is why I was looking for the update site). – despot Feb 10 '13 at 09:46
  • You can also drop it in ECLIPSE_HOME/dropins but that doesnt automagically fixes eclipse editor, validations are disabled for default and you have to open the file in Amateras editor for the assist. – Ziul May 02 '13 at 17:46
  • +1 for describing Aptana as bloated – vincentvanjoe Oct 30 '13 at 16:30
  • One downside to this Amatera HTML Editor Plugin: they don't seem to have gone to the effort of setting up an update site, so you have to manually download it and drop it in your Eclipse plugins directory. – 0xbe5077ed Aug 26 '15 at 16:40
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Disclaimer, I work at Aptana. I would point out there are some nice features for JS that you might not get so easily elsewhere. One is plugin-level integration of JS libraries that provide CodeAssist, samples, snippets and easy inclusion of the libraries files into your project; we provide the plugins for many of the more commonly used libraries, including YUI, jQuery, Prototype, dojo and EXT JS.

Second, we have a server-side JavaScript engine called Jaxer that not only lets you run any of your JS code on the server but adds file, database and networking functionality so that you don't have to use a scripting language but can write the entire app in JS.

BillSaysThis
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    Does Aptana have something like JSEclipse' Content Outline feature? The version I used earlier this year did not. – TomC Sep 30 '08 at 23:12
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    Hi, I'm afraid I can't agree with the previous comment. I installed Aptana on this threads recommendation and for various reasons I now want to remove it. I've spent 15 minutes trying to figure out how to remove it from my Eclipse 3.4 config with no success - it seems to disable the uninstall buttons - and the only instructions I found on the Aptana site are for an older version of Eclipse. This is pretty frustrating - I would strongly suggest NOT installing Aptana. – stephen mulcahy Jun 26 '09 at 12:42
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    Indeed Aptana does not rock (for me anyway). I installed it to edit JS files but found it to be too slow and unresponsive to be of any real use, espcially editing large files. It also seemed to cause performance issues in my other Eclipse plugins. I uninstalled it by reverting my configuration to a point prior to installation. – nick Apr 20 '10 at 14:38
  • I was having an issue with the js editor that comes with PDT, (over a mapped drive cut/paste was very laggy/slow). I switched to Aptana and it didn't have that issue, so it has my vote :-). Plus I prefer the Outline view it uses... Cheers everyone. – eSniff Jul 08 '10 at 18:49
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    Update: I installed the Beta version of the new Aptana Studio 3 and, just as it promised, the performance issues have been resolved. The new version looks good :) – nick Oct 11 '10 at 07:45
  • I attempted to install Aptana in the latest Eclipse (Helios) per the instructions on their site. The install finished, but Eclipse crashed every time I started it. I had to manually remove all traces of Aptana from my eclipse directory to recover. Not much fun. – vanmelle Nov 03 '10 at 20:13
  • I've tried Aptana briefly, but it seemed a bit heavyweight for my taste. Maybe I should give it another chance. – Dónal Jan 30 '11 at 17:05
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    Aptana is great if you want the latest features and don't mind tons of bugs. It sucks otherwise. A general recommendation for anyone considering Aptana is: A) Do you need any features from it (eg. Aptana has the only CoffeeScript Eclipse editor around)? If not, stick with Eclipse; B) If you do need features, try installing Aptana SEPARATELY (Aptana will happily hose your whole Eclipse install if you install it as a plug-in), and then decide whether those features are worth the horrible stability (which hey, by the time you're reading this, might not be so horrible). – machineghost Jan 03 '12 at 19:54
  • The OP asked about a Javascript editor for Ext-JS. Well the lastest version of Ext-JS is v4 and for Aptana to work with it somebody needs to create an Aptana plugin which doesn't look like its going to happen any time soon. Check it out here: https://aptanastudio.tenderapp.com/discussions/suggestions/342-aptana-support-for-extjs-40 – Dave Feb 16 '12 at 22:28
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Try the Vjet Javascript IDE from ebay (installation)

Cédric Guillemette
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Justin Early
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    This is the one to watch as it is moving to the eclipse foundation: http://www.eclipse.org/proposals/webtools.vjet/ – Sam Hasler Sep 27 '12 at 13:57
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Ganymede's version of WTP includes a revamped Javascript editor that's worth a try. The key version numbers are Eclipse 3.4 and WTP 3.0. See http://live.eclipse.org/node/569

nitind
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    -1 million: eclipse's javascript editor is completely worthless. I cant even get it to save files without some kind of bizarre "Compilation unit name must end with .java, or one of the registered Java-like extensions" error. – Mike Miller Jun 29 '11 at 20:30
  • Does the file you're editing have one of the filename extensions listed for the JavaScript Source File content type? – nitind Jul 07 '11 at 10:42
  • Yeah, they are .js files and the association is to the JavaScript Editor. Oddly enough I get this error even when opening the files with the normal Text editor. I have since given up on editing JavaScript with Eclipse. – Mike Miller Jul 07 '11 at 17:02
  • That's really strange, Mike. Have you retried it with Indigo (Eclipse 3.7 and WTP 3.3)? If it's still happening, could you file a bug report with more details? – nitind Jul 15 '11 at 04:39
  • I have not, yet. I will have to give it a try. – Mike Miller Jul 19 '11 at 21:11
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    Suggestion for Mike Miller, from comment on #3: Eclipse bizzare error, "Compilation unit name must end with .java, or one of the registered Java-like extensions". I struggled over same error on a JSP file in Eclipse - the file wouldn't save because of breakpoints. Remove breakpoints and try save. –  Aug 04 '11 at 13:25
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There once existed a plugin called JSEclipse that Adobe has subsequently sucked up and killed by making it available only by purchasing and installing FlexBuilder 3 (please someone prove me wrong). I found it to worked excellent but have since lost it since "upgrading" from Eclipse 3.4 to 3.4.1.

The feature I liked most was Content Outline.

In the Outline window of your Eclipse Screen, JSEclipse lists all classes in the currently opened file. It provides an overview of the class hierarchy and also method and property names. The outline makes heavy use of the code completion engine to find out more about how the code is structured. By clicking on the function entry in the list the cursor will be taken to the function declaration helping you navigate faster in long files with lots of class and method definitions

TomC
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    I am pretty sure anyone running eclipse can use JSEclipse, not just Flex Builder owners .. Remote Site URL: http://download.macromedia.com/pub/labs/jseclipse/autoinstall/ .. should get you there pronto – Scott Evernden Nov 11 '08 at 17:16
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    That download link is broken. – Jacob Dec 05 '10 at 22:02
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The new release of Eclipse (Helios) has an especific package for javascript web development. I haven't tried it yet, but it certainly worth a look.

Decio Lira
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1

Didn't use eclipse for a while, but there are ATF and Aptana.

Nickolay
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0

Oracle Workshop for WebLogic (formally BEA Workshop) has excellent support for JavaScript and for visually editing HTMLs. It support many servers, not only WebLogic, including Tomcat, JBoss, Resin, Jetty, and WebSphere.

It recently became free, check out my post about it. Given that it was an expensive product not long ago, I guess it's worth checking out.

zvikico
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    It's not clear from your post whether "Oracle Workshop for WebLogic" is an Eclipse plugin? – Dónal Sep 25 '08 at 15:12