vJass IDE
Simple standalone IDE for the scripting languages JASS and vJass of the computer game Warcraft III which provides live syntax checking and auto completion.
Automatic Build with TravisCI
Features
- Cross-platform: All platforms supported by the Qt framework.
- pjass integration.
- Custom JASS parser not requiring pjass or other external tools.
- Syntax highlighting.
- Quick access of standard scripts from Warcraft III.
- Outliner listing declarations.
- Automatic syntax checking while writing code.
- Automatic completion while writing code.
Motivation
There are some JASS and vJass tools out there such as TESH which is integrated into the World Editor's trigger editor. It might be the most useful and advanced JASS IDE so far. However, it does not provide live syntax checking nor does it allow refactoring code or check the context when auto completing code. It simply suggests all natives and functions from Warcraft's standard script files. Hence, there is much room from improvement. On the one hand it might be useful to have the tool directly integrated into the World Editor allowing you to create triggers and using generated variables. However, a standalone tool might also be useful for non-Windows users or performance wise or even people who do not own Warcraft III.
There are some other tools like vscode for jass or vjass support extension for Visual Studio Code integrating vJass support into VS code. This might be useful enough for people using this IDE. However, this project can optimize the GUI for vJass only, removing unnecessary features from common IDEs.
Tools like JAST 1.1.1 are also standalone IDEs but lack of good performance and basic GUI features. Besides, they integrate parsers like pjass instead of checking the syntax live.
In the past there has been JassCraft but it has not received any updates since 2013, has no vJass support and no auto completion at all. It still provides some interesting features like an MPQ browser, Code Inspector, Templates and multiple source files as source for the Native List.
This IDE checks the syntax while writing the code and provides some meaningful context-related auto completion.
Software Architecture
The IDE is written in C++ and requires only the Qt framework. It can be used on all platforms which are supported by the Qt framework. Other dependencies are avoided to keep it as simple as possible. I highly recommend the Qt Creator for developing this tool.
Future Work
These are some possible upcoming features for this IDE:
- Code formatting: Different code styles.
- Refactoring: Renaming symbols etc.
- Static analysis: Leak detection, accessing uninitialized variables.
- Integration of existing parsers and compilers: pjass and JassHelper.
- Map integration: Load existing maps to suggest symbols from it like triggers, variables or even rawcodes.
- Export/import formats: trigger data, LUA, Wurst.
- Optimization: Optimizing the map script.
- Obfuscationg: Obfuscating your code with not readable symbols.
Deployment on Windows
Adapt the script deploywindows.bat to your Windows Qt installation, release directory and your target deployment directory. Create a release build and run the script. It copies the vjasside executable and all required DLLs for Windows into the target folder.
JASS and vJass
History
There has already been an attempt to create a vJass IDE in the past around 2010. However, it stopped when I started studying. The code is still used as reference for this project or even copied. It had an MPQ Editor, syntax schemas, sessions, a JassHelper dialog and the integration of my tool vjassdoc.