topic Re: Favourite editor in App Development

Favourite editor

AndrewMcIlwrick — Mon, 20 Dec 2021 21:08:46 GMT

Hi All

Would anyone like to volunteer the name of their favourite editor they use for Qlik development ( i.e. externalised scripts ) ? I use NotePad++ ( with its XML language definition ) but I have heard others like Atom ( with the same ).

On a similar vein, having externalised all the scripts into a library of .QVS files is there an easy way to automate and load their contents back into a Sense app ? The must_include statements to reference the file are just $ sign expansions of a system variable containing the path, but it would be great if there is a way to quickly ( "automated" ) bring all the external code back into a single place for whatever reason.

Thanks

Andrew.

Re: Favourite editor

fosuzuki — Wed, 13 May 2020 13:38:50 GMT

Hi Andrew,

I am using Visual Studio Code, it has a plugin for Qlik syntax.

Regarding the automated load of QVS files, one way to do it is have all scripts in a specific folder, do a loop to get the files from this folder and then dinamically generate the include statements inside the loop.

Re: Favourite editor

mountaindude — Wed, 13 May 2020 14:30:27 GMT

Notepad++ is nice, as is Atom and Sublime Text. And Emacs. And Vim.

Having used them all over the years, my absolute favourite - by far - is Visual Studio Code.
None of the others really come close, IMHO.
Admittedly I develop in a few different languages and the fact that VSC handles them all counts in VSC's favour, but even for pure Qlik scripting I'd never choose anything but VSC.

Why VSC?
Great, extensible editor. Tons of extensions. Many are useless, but having those 10 superior ones installed saves me hours and hours every week. Awesome git integration becomes even better with a few good git related extensions.
The Qlik syntax highlighting extension is the same as used in Atom I believe. Or at least very similar. Get's the job done.

That said - the question of which IDE and editor is best have sparked more than one flame war over the years....

Re: Favourite editor

Oleg_Troyansky — Wed, 13 May 2020 15:36:32 GMT

It would be great to learn from people who use VS Code routinely, specifically what are those top 10 extensions that are useful.

Also, I loved the QlikView feature that allowed opening, editing, and saving external script files within the QlikView script editor. It would be fantastic if the same feature was re-introduced in Qlik Sense!

Cheers,

Re: Favourite editor

jheasley — Thu, 14 May 2020 10:51:28 GMT

Hey Andrew,

i also use visual studio code. it handles the file hierarchy that we were already using for keeping scripts organized, has Qlik syntax (although this could be improved upon, would be nice if Qlik created a supported language extension), and it is neatly ties in with GitHub for source control. it can also be used as a one stop shop interface - I also have JIRA tied in, as well as several DB explorers for convenience.

Re: Favourite editor

s_kabir_rab — Thu, 14 May 2020 23:08:50 GMT

Visual Studio Code is the winner for me. I have tried notepad ++ but not recently.

VS Code became me favourite due to me working across multiple languages and platform and VS code handles them for me really well. I would love to see some simple way developers being able to use IDE to write script and deployment them to Qlik sense app with out having to build a set of tools to do it.

Re: Favourite editor

AndrewMcIlwrick — Fri, 15 May 2020 06:24:19 GMT

Thanks - I will have a look at VS Code.

Still not sure about the other part though without trying it out. Will the end result not just be the same as have the must_includes in the script ? i.e. the code will not be physically lifted in place into the QVF / app itself ?

Re: Favourite editor

AndrewMcIlwrick — Fri, 15 May 2020 06:25:39 GMT

Thanks - will have a look at VS code given its popularity.

Re: Favourite editor

AndrewMcIlwrick — Fri, 15 May 2020 06:26:49 GMT

Great tip re. GIT / GitHub integration - installing it now 🙂

Re: Favourite editor

AndrewMcIlwrick — Fri, 15 May 2020 06:30:11 GMT

Great idea Oleg ! If you submit it you get my +1 vote. The dev hub after all does have the concepts of a rudimentary IDE in its features so an equivalent in the Sense hub client should be do-able. I guess most people who want to use a product in this way will likely want to use a non-Qlik IDE, and the top winners seems to be VS Code so not sure if R&D would invest time in in-built tooling.