I've been working slowly on a JEdit plugin for FOCUS/WebFocus code.

Amongst the many cool features of JEdit, is that it has code auto-complete (like Microsoft's Intellisense). Thanks to IBI's Webfocus's Web Services API, and JEdit's extensible SideKick code structure plugin, we can finally have an editor that understands focus a bit better than notepad. I've extended its functinality to allow a structural view of your fex in 2 different views: (1) Top-down, summarizing each HOLD and TABLE in your 1000 line fex and (2) Recursive relational view, showing you the dependencies of each TABLE HOLD on other TABLES in the same fex.

And since JEdit has as an internal HTML browser (through its InfoViewer plugin), you can run and view the results of your Webfocus reports right inside your JEdit editor. Of course, you can change the setting to have the report run externally from JEdit if you so choose, especially if you are using PCHOLD formats that JEdit probably won't support all that well. Moreover, support for report parameters allows a prompt to input your parameter values right within JEdit too.

Using the web services API, the JEdit editor can also connect to your own domains and show you your folders and fexes for you to edit locally, and then upload them back. I plan for a release very soon to the JEdit Community. You can visit me at my blog. Feedback, thoughts and comments are welcome.

You can see it here:

Screenshot 1 Screenshot 2

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This looks amazing and more complete than any text editor that IBI has - Dev Studio, MRE, etc.

I'm using EditPlus 2 which is my favourite Windoze program - it has syntax colouring and auto-completion for WebFOCUS. Does JEdit auto-complete functions (user written subroutines)?

Thanks, will look into it further.

Thanks, Francis, for your favorable comments. I've currently setup the Webfocus plugin to the JEdit default setting, i.e., it will recognize and autocomplete any piece of text you typed in the fex you have open. So if you have a procedure defined in the same fex you have open, JEdit sure will pop-up the rest of its name when you type the first few characters, as it has occurred at least once in the text of your open fex. By the way, I've also added a few more shots of the application, highlighting more of its features.

I am accepting requests for additional features too (as posts to my blog ) for now.

Thanks and regards.

That, my friend, is pretty sweet. Nice job!

This looks really good. But where is the painter?

Microsoft jvm???

Glad to hear positive feedback. This should encourage me to release it sooner, at least for the gurus to test and let me know of problems in this early work.

As for the report painter, I might think about add a charge if I were to implement that into the editor (just kidding, this is open-source that will eventually be on sourceforge).

As for microsoft jvm, there is nothing microsoft in this. That was another motive actually. Since JEdit is 100% Java, you can enjoy the FOCUS plugin with all its features on any machine (or OS) with a Java runtime.

I added a few more shots here.

Regards
Abushadi

I hate to be a damper on this, but you do realize that the WebFOCUS Web Services API is a chargable option. Might I suggest you use the actual WebFOCUS API instead? The WebFOCUS API is java based and, to the best of my knowledge, an extra license is not required.

I believe dhagen is correct. I also believe that the Web Services API is actually being converted to the JAVA API on the backend. So going directly to the JAVA API will also be faster.

Thanks for your valuable input. The plugin will eventually support the Webfocus API in future releases. As for users without web services capabilities, they will still be able to have the basic editor features, i.e., syntax highlighting, code auto complete, and code structure tree (in all its modes). They will miss out on the capablity to run/upload/download and update their domain fexes using the APIs.

But Jedit has an FTP plugin by the way. That may work as a substitiute for some people, at least to download and upload files.

I guess the main reason that the Webfocus API was not used to begin with is the problems I faced with it. For example, I can't even get the API to have me login to the MRE, giving me an error like the following:

 Managed Reporting Repository file mrrepos.htm not found on the C:/ibi/DevStudio71/basedir location.

I do point my cgipath to ibiweb.cfg in C:\ibi\DevStudio71\srv71\wfs\web\cgi, but I can't find a 'basedir' folder anywhere in my Webfocus Client. The Webfocus API docs didn't really mention that error, as far as I know. I'm sure I am missing something somewhere, and I guess I need to figure it out someday.

Of course, with help from the Webfocus API gurus, I'll be able to make the plugin have support for that API much quicker.

Thanks for all your help in advance.

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