8 ms·

Node.js Tools for Visual Studio

232 points by ambuj 13y ago

legacy2013 13y ago
This is great, I've been playing around with node and express recently and just using notepad++, I'll be integrating it into my VS environment when I get home
polskibus 13y ago
Great, I wonder when will they release the standalone version!
- smortaz 13y ago
  great idea - just created a request for it. please upvote! https://nodejstools.codeplex.com/workitem/520 https://nodejstools.codeplex.com/workitem/520
smortaz 13y ago
thanks ambuj for submitting. i work on the team & will be around for a couple of hours in case folks have any questions. would love to hear your feedback... cheers.
jbigelow76 13y ago
I like this. I smuggled Node into our company to suplant a very difficult to test/debug WCF process and it's slowly been creeping out into bigger use cases. I've tried using VS for managing my Node scripts but it just wasn't a very elegant fit given VS's concept of projects and solutions so I kept falling back to Sublime. I'm excited to see if I can finally maintain just a single editor for both my .NET and Node code.
- _random_ 13y ago
  Why not Web API and SignalR?
  - jbigelow76 13y ago
    I like Web API a lot and would have no problems using it more. I've never messed around with SignalR, I had already started playing with Node at that point. As I mentioned, but didn't elaborate on, in my first post I had an urgent need to fix a production problem as quickly as possible. But the service giving us the problems was opaque, and encumbered by these massive 100+ project .NET solutions that had grown unwieldy for rapid development. Being able to kick VS+TFS and their ceremony to the curb and hack out a solution with Node and Sublime Text was liberating. But it wasn't really VS I had a problem with, it was paying the price for years of technical debt. That's why I'm excited, I still think VS is a great IDE for my .NET work. One other final reason I wanted to use Node was because I felt for someone that considered himself to be a "web developer" I was abnormally shitty at javascript and wanted to know it better :)
    - _random_ 13y ago
      Sounds reasonable :). Although I dread imagining a JavaScript equivalent of a "100+ project .NET solutions" built in spirit of "rapid development".
      - pjmlp 13y ago
        I do like dynamic languages for quick prototypes, but my experience on the scale of enterprise projects and their code quality, just increased my preference for static typing for production code.
        int_19h 13y ago
        TypeScript FTW. https://nodejstools.codeplex.com/workitem/291 https://nodejstools.codeplex.com/workitem/291
        pjmlp 13y ago
        Thanks for the info. Now if only we had customers asking for TypeScript. I really like its design as a JavaScript superset.
Touche 13y ago
Very nice, will help Node break into the enterprise.
- taude 13y ago
  Microsoft's definitely giving NodeJS some credibility to enterprise shops
  - _random_ 13y ago
    I hope they will understand when is the good case for using it. I wonder which kind of enterprise would need a high-load web site as opposed to a high-performance one?
    - jbigelow76 13y ago
      You don't have to use it for a website, it makes a great inter-service communication channel.
      - taude 13y ago
        I was going to almost reply with this exact comment. I'm not even convinced that everyone trying to build websites with Node/Express is onto something. I think of it more as a back-end SOA-thing.
evanmoran 13y ago
This seems useful for the profiling alone.
- shanselman 13y ago
  The profiling will only get better. Right now it profiles everything, but it could potentially be scoped down to "just my code." Plus, it's a sampling profiler as it is so you will need to push some real traffic to work hot spots (as opposed to just browse and click around) in order to get results. What's cool about it, IMHO (I wrote the post above) is that it takes the V8 profiling stuff and feeds it into the VS visualizer...as it should.
blahbl4hblahtoo 13y ago
Wow, for an alpha release that's pretty impressive. Node seems to be really taking off at MS...parts of Azure are built with it...some really large parts of Azure. It's awesome that they didn't screw with Node either to make it run on Chakra...
- sheetjs 13y ago
  I'm similarly surprised mozilla hasn't come out with an SM-powered node
  - tracker1 13y ago
    It's actually been done[1], to more or less success, but hasn't been kept up, and the differences in embedding SpiderMonkey vs V8 were cumbersome iirc. Not to mention compatibility with compiled modules. I was interested as E4X support would have been nicer earlier on, but it's surprising how quickly json has taken over. [1] https://github.com/zpao/spidernode https://github.com/zpao/spidernode
- polskibus 13y ago
  Do you have a reference for Azure internals being written in node.js? I'd love to read about it.
  - smortaz 13y ago
    i'll try to find out. top my head i know the azure node sdk is all node (obviously...), all the cross-plat commands/utils are node, skype, yammer, bing (?), ... all use node to various extents. some info: http://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/develop/nodejs/ http://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/develop/nodejs/ https://github.com/WindowsAzure/azure-sdk-for-node https://github.com/WindowsAzure/azure-sdk-for-node https://github.com/WindowsAzure/azure-sdk-tools-xplat https://github.com/WindowsAzure/azure-sdk-tools-xplat
    - int_19h 13y ago
      Also Azure Mobile Services server scripts: http://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/develop/mobile/how-to-guides/work-with-server-scripts/ http://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/develop/mobile/how-to-guid...
jokoon 13y ago
nooooooooo (downvote me)
gum_ina_package 13y ago
Seeing things like this gives me hope that one day Windows will be a first class os for web development. Now if I could just maximize the command prompt window....
- abrichr 13y ago
  ConEmu [1] has made CLI on Windows much more tolerable for me. [1] http://code.google.com/p/conemu-maximus5/ http://code.google.com/p/conemu-maximus5/
  - platz 13y ago
    ConEmu is great; never looked back!
  - shadowfox 13y ago
    Conemu with powershell and PSReadline [1] has made things a lot nicer. [1] https://github.com/lzybkr/PSReadLine https://github.com/lzybkr/PSReadLine
- sker 13y ago
  You can't maximize it, but you can set its width and height. Right click in taskbar -> Properties -> Layout. There are settings for size, position and buffer size. I have mine the size of the whole window and with the biggest possible buffer, as well as a more readable font.
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
- jliechti1 13y ago
  For Emacs users on Windows, I've found Eshell (M-x eshell)[0] to be much preferable to the normal command window for most tasks. [0]: http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_mono/eshell.html http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_mono/eshell.ht...
- pjmlp 13y ago
gum_ina_package 13y ago
Seeing things like this gives me hope that one day Windows will be a first class os for web development. Now if I could just maximize the command prompt window....
gum_ina_package 13y ago
Seeing things like this gives me hope that one day Windows will be a first class os for web development. Now if I could just maximize the command prompt window....
gum_ina_package 13y ago
Seeing things like this gives me hope that one day Windows will be a first class os for web development. Now if I could just maximize the command prompt window....
fro 13y ago
Seems like overkill. Part of why Node is great and so easy to get started with is that all you need is a browser, a text editor, and the terminal. I suppose for people that already use VS this is good, but maybe we should encourage them to write Node apps outside of that environment instead of shoving Node into a giant IDE.
- int_19h 13y ago
  There's more to development than a text editor, though. Sometimes you do want debugging. And maybe you want syntax highlighting in your REPL. And, perhaps, you'd like some profiling to figure out how to make your Node app run faster.
  - fro 13y ago
    Yes, and most of those things are already available as modular open source tools that fit well in the Node ecosystem. Encouraging people to use one giant, closed, monolithic program for all of those purposes is not a good step forward for Node.
    - jbigelow76 13y ago
      I think you are failing to make the distinction that the Node community isn't encouraging devs to use Visual Studio; Visual Studio is helping its community to use Node.
    - Sanddancer 13y ago
      I'd disagree. It allows people to use the tools they're most comfortable with, instead of imposing a singular idea as far as what the blessed environment is. Obviously, some people don't like the string of tools together approach, or else this wouldn't have been developed.
- smortaz 13y ago
  you have a point. i dont think node in a fat IDE is for everyone / every scenario. i look at it as just another tool in the dev's toolbox. ideal (imho) is a decent web-based tool or light-weight editor plus a capable IDE for larger scale apps that need complex debugging, profiling, mutli-lingual project, etc. support. for a lighter weight solution, check out: http://channel9.msdn.com/Series/Visual-Studio-Online-Monaco/Getting-started-with-nodejs http://channel9.msdn.com/Series/Visual-Studio-Online-Monaco/...
MilesTeg 13y ago
This looks really cool. Is there a way to have Node.js tools work with TypeScript?
- smortaz 13y ago
  thanks! we're hoping to add TS for Beta.
corysama 13y ago
I'm a big fan of Python Tools for Visual Studio (https://pytools.codeplex.com/ https://pytools.codeplex.com/). Assuming Njs4VS lives up to it's predecessor, it could be a truly wonderful tool.
- stinos 13y ago
  exactly. Honestly, mixed mode debugging made me drool first time I used it.
mmgutz 13y ago
I'll admit I'm one of those who whined about nodeJS targeting Windows. Windows is starting to look more and more like a first-tier nodeJS platform with help from Microsoft! Can't wait to try this out. How about a little golang love in Visual Studio?
tehsuck 13y ago
Have fun using npm with MAX_PATH.
joshguthrie 13y ago
This is the kind of thing that makes me want to switch back to Windows. I like VS since I've been using it to develop a C# app these last two months. I miss a lot of things because I'm too deep in CLI usage (like git...help me...), but had I had it when I tried to play with Ruby on Windows 7 three years ago and discovered the pain of the windows CLI, maybe I would've stayed there. These Node.js tools are especially great. I spend a lot of time on CLI running my app, installing a module, watching my dev logs,... I couldn't ever imagine anyone using node.js on windows. Now I can and it looks great.
- pjmlp 13y ago
  Let me guess, you used plain cmd instead of PowerShell.
  - joshguthrie 13y ago
    True. I had used cmd for about 15 years before that, so while using "cd" or "dir" and the classic lingo was okay, doing everything rails-related in CLI just felt..clunky: "why would you have such a bad interface? EasyPHP does everything just fine with a GUI!". Had I known CLI could be more intuitive (hello pipes!), I'd have looked up for a better alternative sooner =)
    - w0rd-driven 13y ago
      RailsInstaller does a really good job now. Windows now feels second class but that's much better than 4th-5th-good luck getting anything to run. I see more people in the #RoR Irc channel admit to using windows so its gaining traction. I don't think it'll ever be 1:1 and I have a Linux host for a reason but it isn't a jarring experience anymore for sure.
jayvanguard 13y ago
Here's a nickel, kid. Get yourself a real OS.
talles 13y ago
This is a BIG step to make me switch to Windows. Debugging Node.js just like C# is really awesome (no brainer breakpoints and inspection: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W_1_UqUDx2s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W_1_UqUDx2s). This plus a decent shell would definitely make me switch (I hate PowerShell).
- smortaz 13y ago
  thanks talles. note that you can debug from VS to Linux with NTVS. here's the debugging video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ir9ZB8lUg4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ir9ZB8lUg4
  - iaskwhy 13y ago
    I haven't tried but there's probably no reason this won't work with Ubuntu installed on a Vagrant VM. Which is exactly how I develop nowadays from a Windows machine. This is crazy!
Xdes 13y ago
I wonder how this compares to the Visual Node[1] plugin by Redgate. [1] http://www.visualnode.info/ http://www.visualnode.info/
- smortaz 13y ago
  visualnode was a fork of http://pytools.codeplex.com http://pytools.codeplex.com and they've joined the NTVS project (which is also forked from the same source). Bart Read from red-gate did the npm GUI for NTVS in fact. they stated that they'll shut down visualnode.
  - Xdes 13y ago
    Just got the email. --- Firstly, thanks for signing up for the beta of Visual Node, and trying out the tool. Your feedback has been incredibly helpful to us. Today we have a very exciting announcement for you. Since the summer Red Gate has been working with Microsoft on a free, open source Node development environment for Visual Studio called Node Tools for Visual Studio (NTVS). We've just released the first public alpha of NTVS, which you can download from: https://nodejstools.codeplex.com/ https://nodejstools.codeplex.com/ NTVS offers what we believe is a much richer development experience than Visual Node, including: Various Node project types, IntelliSense and editing, Debugging, including remote debugging on Linux, Profiling, npm, Azure deployment, Support for both Visual Studio 2012 and 2013 In addition you can create NTVS projects based on existing code, making it easy to upgrade from Visual Node to NTVS. Please see https://www.simple-talk.com/blogs/2013/11/22/node-js-development-in-visual-studio-life-after-visual-node-with-node-tools-for-visual-studio/ https://www.simple-talk.com/blogs/2013/11/22/node-js-develop... for more information. If you have any feedback we'd love to hear from you. You can report bugs or improvement requests at https://nodejstools.codeplex.com/workitem/list/basic https://nodejstools.codeplex.com/workitem/list/basic, whilst support and general feedback/discussion is available at https://nodejstools.codeplex.com/discussions https://nodejstools.codeplex.com/discussions. Please do vote on the bugs/improvements you'd most like us to work on. I'd like to take this opportunity to thank you again for participating in the Visual Node beta program. As I said, your feedback has been very helpful, and continues to influence the development of NTVS. If you have any questions about anything in this email please do post to the discussion URL on Codeplex - we'd love to hear from you. Kind regards, Bart Read NTVS Contributor Red Gate Software https://nodejstools.codeplex.com/ https://nodejstools.codeplex.com/
LeafyGreenbriar 13y ago
For Mac or Linux noders who would prefer an IDE to a simple editor + command line tools, IntelliJ with the Node plugin is pretty good. It has code assist and debugging built in, and IntelliJ is just generally a very good IDE. Edit: WebStorm from the same company (JetBrains) is cheaper if you don't need all the java tools support.

232 points by ambuj 13y ago

legacy2013 13y ago

This is great, I've been playing around with node and express recently and just using notepad++, I'll be integrating it into my VS environment when I get home

polskibus 13y ago

Great, I wonder when will they release the standalone version!

smortaz 13y ago
great idea - just created a request for it. please upvote! https://nodejstools.codeplex.com/workitem/520 https://nodejstools.codeplex.com/workitem/520

smortaz 13y ago

thanks ambuj for submitting. i work on the team & will be around for a couple of hours in case folks have any questions. would love to hear your feedback... cheers.

jbigelow76 13y ago

I like this. I smuggled Node into our company to suplant a very difficult to test/debug WCF process and it's slowly been creeping out into bigger use cases. I've tried using VS for managing my Node scripts but it just wasn't a very elegant fit given VS's concept of projects and solutions so I kept falling back to Sublime. I'm excited to see if I can finally maintain just a single editor for both my .NET and Node code.

_random_ 13y ago
Why not Web API and SignalR?
- jbigelow76 13y ago
  I like Web API a lot and would have no problems using it more. I've never messed around with SignalR, I had already started playing with Node at that point. As I mentioned, but didn't elaborate on, in my first post I had an urgent need to fix a production problem as quickly as possible. But the service giving us the problems was opaque, and encumbered by these massive 100+ project .NET solutions that had grown unwieldy for rapid development. Being able to kick VS+TFS and their ceremony to the curb and hack out a solution with Node and Sublime Text was liberating. But it wasn't really VS I had a problem with, it was paying the price for years of technical debt. That's why I'm excited, I still think VS is a great IDE for my .NET work. One other final reason I wanted to use Node was because I felt for someone that considered himself to be a "web developer" I was abnormally shitty at javascript and wanted to know it better :)
  - _random_ 13y ago
    Sounds reasonable :). Although I dread imagining a JavaScript equivalent of a "100+ project .NET solutions" built in spirit of "rapid development".
    - pjmlp 13y ago
      I do like dynamic languages for quick prototypes, but my experience on the scale of enterprise projects and their code quality, just increased my preference for static typing for production code.
      - int_19h 13y ago
        TypeScript FTW. https://nodejstools.codeplex.com/workitem/291 https://nodejstools.codeplex.com/workitem/291
        pjmlp 13y ago
        Thanks for the info. Now if only we had customers asking for TypeScript. I really like its design as a JavaScript superset.

Touche 13y ago

Very nice, will help Node break into the enterprise.

taude 13y ago
Microsoft's definitely giving NodeJS some credibility to enterprise shops
- _random_ 13y ago
  I hope they will understand when is the good case for using it. I wonder which kind of enterprise would need a high-load web site as opposed to a high-performance one?
  - jbigelow76 13y ago
    You don't have to use it for a website, it makes a great inter-service communication channel.
    - taude 13y ago
      I was going to almost reply with this exact comment. I'm not even convinced that everyone trying to build websites with Node/Express is onto something. I think of it more as a back-end SOA-thing.

evanmoran 13y ago

This seems useful for the profiling alone.

shanselman 13y ago
The profiling will only get better. Right now it profiles everything, but it could potentially be scoped down to "just my code." Plus, it's a sampling profiler as it is so you will need to push some real traffic to work hot spots (as opposed to just browse and click around) in order to get results. What's cool about it, IMHO (I wrote the post above) is that it takes the V8 profiling stuff and feeds it into the VS visualizer...as it should.

blahbl4hblahtoo 13y ago

Wow, for an alpha release that's pretty impressive. Node seems to be really taking off at MS...parts of Azure are built with it...some really large parts of Azure. It's awesome that they didn't screw with Node either to make it run on Chakra...

sheetjs 13y ago
I'm similarly surprised mozilla hasn't come out with an SM-powered node
- tracker1 13y ago
  It's actually been done[1], to more or less success, but hasn't been kept up, and the differences in embedding SpiderMonkey vs V8 were cumbersome iirc. Not to mention compatibility with compiled modules. I was interested as E4X support would have been nicer earlier on, but it's surprising how quickly json has taken over. [1] https://github.com/zpao/spidernode https://github.com/zpao/spidernode
polskibus 13y ago
Do you have a reference for Azure internals being written in node.js? I'd love to read about it.
- smortaz 13y ago
  i'll try to find out. top my head i know the azure node sdk is all node (obviously...), all the cross-plat commands/utils are node, skype, yammer, bing (?), ... all use node to various extents. some info: http://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/develop/nodejs/ http://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/develop/nodejs/ https://github.com/WindowsAzure/azure-sdk-for-node https://github.com/WindowsAzure/azure-sdk-for-node https://github.com/WindowsAzure/azure-sdk-tools-xplat https://github.com/WindowsAzure/azure-sdk-tools-xplat
  - int_19h 13y ago
    Also Azure Mobile Services server scripts: http://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/develop/mobile/how-to-guides/work-with-server-scripts/ http://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/develop/mobile/how-to-guid...

jokoon 13y ago

nooooooooo (downvote me)

gum_ina_package 13y ago

Seeing things like this gives me hope that one day Windows will be a first class os for web development. Now if I could just maximize the command prompt window....

abrichr 13y ago
ConEmu [1] has made CLI on Windows much more tolerable for me. [1] http://code.google.com/p/conemu-maximus5/ http://code.google.com/p/conemu-maximus5/
- platz 13y ago
  ConEmu is great; never looked back!
- shadowfox 13y ago
  Conemu with powershell and PSReadline [1] has made things a lot nicer. [1] https://github.com/lzybkr/PSReadLine https://github.com/lzybkr/PSReadLine
sker 13y ago
You can't maximize it, but you can set its width and height. Right click in taskbar -> Properties -> Layout. There are settings for size, position and buffer size. I have mine the size of the whole window and with the biggest possible buffer, as well as a more readable font.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
jliechti1 13y ago
For Emacs users on Windows, I've found Eshell (M-x eshell)[0] to be much preferable to the normal command window for most tasks. [0]: http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_mono/eshell.html http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_mono/eshell.ht...
pjmlp 13y ago

gum_ina_package 13y ago

Seeing things like this gives me hope that one day Windows will be a first class os for web development. Now if I could just maximize the command prompt window....

gum_ina_package 13y ago

Seeing things like this gives me hope that one day Windows will be a first class os for web development. Now if I could just maximize the command prompt window....

gum_ina_package 13y ago

Seeing things like this gives me hope that one day Windows will be a first class os for web development. Now if I could just maximize the command prompt window....

fro 13y ago

Seems like overkill. Part of why Node is great and so easy to get started with is that all you need is a browser, a text editor, and the terminal. I suppose for people that already use VS this is good, but maybe we should encourage them to write Node apps outside of that environment instead of shoving Node into a giant IDE.

int_19h 13y ago
There's more to development than a text editor, though. Sometimes you do want debugging. And maybe you want syntax highlighting in your REPL. And, perhaps, you'd like some profiling to figure out how to make your Node app run faster.
- fro 13y ago
  Yes, and most of those things are already available as modular open source tools that fit well in the Node ecosystem. Encouraging people to use one giant, closed, monolithic program for all of those purposes is not a good step forward for Node.
  - jbigelow76 13y ago
    I think you are failing to make the distinction that the Node community isn't encouraging devs to use Visual Studio; Visual Studio is helping its community to use Node.
  - Sanddancer 13y ago
    I'd disagree. It allows people to use the tools they're most comfortable with, instead of imposing a singular idea as far as what the blessed environment is. Obviously, some people don't like the string of tools together approach, or else this wouldn't have been developed.
smortaz 13y ago
you have a point. i dont think node in a fat IDE is for everyone / every scenario. i look at it as just another tool in the dev's toolbox. ideal (imho) is a decent web-based tool or light-weight editor plus a capable IDE for larger scale apps that need complex debugging, profiling, mutli-lingual project, etc. support. for a lighter weight solution, check out: http://channel9.msdn.com/Series/Visual-Studio-Online-Monaco/Getting-started-with-nodejs http://channel9.msdn.com/Series/Visual-Studio-Online-Monaco/...

MilesTeg 13y ago

This looks really cool. Is there a way to have Node.js tools work with TypeScript?

smortaz 13y ago
thanks! we're hoping to add TS for Beta.

corysama 13y ago

I'm a big fan of Python Tools for Visual Studio (https://pytools.codeplex.com/ https://pytools.codeplex.com/). Assuming Njs4VS lives up to it's predecessor, it could be a truly wonderful tool.

stinos 13y ago
exactly. Honestly, mixed mode debugging made me drool first time I used it.

mmgutz 13y ago

I'll admit I'm one of those who whined about nodeJS targeting Windows. Windows is starting to look more and more like a first-tier nodeJS platform with help from Microsoft! Can't wait to try this out. How about a little golang love in Visual Studio?

tehsuck 13y ago

Have fun using npm with MAX_PATH.

joshguthrie 13y ago

This is the kind of thing that makes me want to switch back to Windows. I like VS since I've been using it to develop a C# app these last two months. I miss a lot of things because I'm too deep in CLI usage (like git...help me...), but had I had it when I tried to play with Ruby on Windows 7 three years ago and discovered the pain of the windows CLI, maybe I would've stayed there. These Node.js tools are especially great. I spend a lot of time on CLI running my app, installing a module, watching my dev logs,... I couldn't ever imagine anyone using node.js on windows. Now I can and it looks great.

pjmlp 13y ago
Let me guess, you used plain cmd instead of PowerShell.
- joshguthrie 13y ago
  True. I had used cmd for about 15 years before that, so while using "cd" or "dir" and the classic lingo was okay, doing everything rails-related in CLI just felt..clunky: "why would you have such a bad interface? EasyPHP does everything just fine with a GUI!". Had I known CLI could be more intuitive (hello pipes!), I'd have looked up for a better alternative sooner =)
  - w0rd-driven 13y ago
    RailsInstaller does a really good job now. Windows now feels second class but that's much better than 4th-5th-good luck getting anything to run. I see more people in the #RoR Irc channel admit to using windows so its gaining traction. I don't think it'll ever be 1:1 and I have a Linux host for a reason but it isn't a jarring experience anymore for sure.

jayvanguard 13y ago

Here's a nickel, kid. Get yourself a real OS.

talles 13y ago

This is a BIG step to make me switch to Windows. Debugging Node.js just like C# is really awesome (no brainer breakpoints and inspection: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W_1_UqUDx2s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W_1_UqUDx2s). This plus a decent shell would definitely make me switch (I hate PowerShell).

smortaz 13y ago
thanks talles. note that you can debug from VS to Linux with NTVS. here's the debugging video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ir9ZB8lUg4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ir9ZB8lUg4
- iaskwhy 13y ago
  I haven't tried but there's probably no reason this won't work with Ubuntu installed on a Vagrant VM. Which is exactly how I develop nowadays from a Windows machine. This is crazy!

Xdes 13y ago

I wonder how this compares to the Visual Node[1] plugin by Redgate. [1] http://www.visualnode.info/ http://www.visualnode.info/

smortaz 13y ago
visualnode was a fork of http://pytools.codeplex.com http://pytools.codeplex.com and they've joined the NTVS project (which is also forked from the same source). Bart Read from red-gate did the npm GUI for NTVS in fact. they stated that they'll shut down visualnode.
- Xdes 13y ago
  Just got the email. --- Firstly, thanks for signing up for the beta of Visual Node, and trying out the tool. Your feedback has been incredibly helpful to us. Today we have a very exciting announcement for you. Since the summer Red Gate has been working with Microsoft on a free, open source Node development environment for Visual Studio called Node Tools for Visual Studio (NTVS). We've just released the first public alpha of NTVS, which you can download from: https://nodejstools.codeplex.com/ https://nodejstools.codeplex.com/ NTVS offers what we believe is a much richer development experience than Visual Node, including: Various Node project types, IntelliSense and editing, Debugging, including remote debugging on Linux, Profiling, npm, Azure deployment, Support for both Visual Studio 2012 and 2013 In addition you can create NTVS projects based on existing code, making it easy to upgrade from Visual Node to NTVS. Please see https://www.simple-talk.com/blogs/2013/11/22/node-js-development-in-visual-studio-life-after-visual-node-with-node-tools-for-visual-studio/ https://www.simple-talk.com/blogs/2013/11/22/node-js-develop... for more information. If you have any feedback we'd love to hear from you. You can report bugs or improvement requests at https://nodejstools.codeplex.com/workitem/list/basic https://nodejstools.codeplex.com/workitem/list/basic, whilst support and general feedback/discussion is available at https://nodejstools.codeplex.com/discussions https://nodejstools.codeplex.com/discussions. Please do vote on the bugs/improvements you'd most like us to work on. I'd like to take this opportunity to thank you again for participating in the Visual Node beta program. As I said, your feedback has been very helpful, and continues to influence the development of NTVS. If you have any questions about anything in this email please do post to the discussion URL on Codeplex - we'd love to hear from you. Kind regards, Bart Read NTVS Contributor Red Gate Software https://nodejstools.codeplex.com/ https://nodejstools.codeplex.com/

LeafyGreenbriar 13y ago

For Mac or Linux noders who would prefer an IDE to a simple editor + command line tools, IntelliJ with the Node plugin is pretty good. It has code assist and debugging built in, and IntelliJ is just generally a very good IDE. Edit: WebStorm from the same company (JetBrains) is cheaper if you don't need all the java tools support.