The Alchemist Guild’s Blog

I’m sorry to say that WebScripter is officially on hold until a new direction for the application can be established. The current design is simply too large and complicated for me to maintain and has not competed well making the project far too expensive to develop. I have already started work on a smaller more robust design which has more in common with other popular tools but I don’t expect a release anytime soon since a massive overhaul is needed. Furthermore the Carbon API has been more or less totally deprecated and parts of the program will need to be rewritten in Cocoa, mainly the text editor which is the  most complicated part of the program.

When the overhaul is done WebScripter will emerge as a smaller program with stronger core features and cheaper price tag probably about $20.

3 months after the first Intel native release and still I have not produced anything like I had hoped. I made a terrible mistake in deciding what the first new feature I should add was: code folding. This was a intensely complicated feature to implement and complicated the editor down to every detail from copy/pasting, saving/loading and typing/syntax styling. Let it be known, WebScripter does have a pretty nice implementation working but the system has put such a strain on the text editor API WASTE it has forced to remove it altogether. This was a long time coming considering the crippling speed issue and developer failing to provide support. He is btw basically quitting WASTE, I should have known this 2 years ago…

Next version preview (2.1)

I wrote about this headache before regarding PascalGladiator but the root is in WebScripter. This means before the next version I will be up-rooting the text editor and implementing the Cocoa system NSTextView using the new experiemental PasCocoa Objective-C runtime wrapper. I just can’t accept that I am developing programmer tools that rely on a text editor at the core but editing files around 1000 lines is too slow to use. Before code folding it was still a joke, but now it’s just silly.

However I still was able to create some new features that are in development but near the end.

First is the Reference Mode. I wanted this feature for a while now as I’m sick of switching back and forth between browsers and editors to get function arguments and the likes. What’s special about the system in WebScripter is it allows you to design search rules (using Regular Expressions) that can crawl and index a site like a search engine. There will be basics pre-loaded with the release but you can customize and add new web sites on your own. After a site has been indexed you can search the contents from the book mode pane (seen in the screen shot above) or contextual click on code and it will bring you right to the page you need in the reference library. Really useful feature and it’s totally customizable to the user.

Second is inline error checking. I felt the error checking process was intrusive (bringing down a list above the editor, however this will remain available) and that the information could be contained in the gutter using icons and floating help windows. In PHP which has great error handling you can see the stack trace in the gutter and the value of variables by dragging the cursor over them in the text editor. Additionally, real time syntax checks will be available as you type.

But the changes I really wanted to make are more towards user experience and simplifying the preview/run/error system which is just cluttered as of now.  This should have all happened by now if not for the the mistakes I made. Until next time…

11/04/08: WebScripter 2.0.3 Released. Universal binary at last! This was no trivial step for me as I changed Pascal compilers (FPC) and development environment. Good-bye Pascal CodeWarrior and over 10 years of programming with it!

• Symbol filter in the side pane was removed for a cleaner look.
• Updates can be downloaded automatically from within the application.
• A new slicker website design appears with this release.
• Disabled window toolbar items no longer look too white on Leopard’s darker appearance.
• Changed the list appearance (again) to look more Leopard.
• Various menu items enable/disable properly now.
• New application/document icon. Thanks to Jordan of www.onetoad.com.
• Spell checker now works in the editor. There is also a spelling item in the contextual menu when you click on a word.
• Find/Terminal panes animate as they open/close.
• Icons in the preference window toolbars appear “selected” now. Doh!
• Translucent drag images from lists now look better.
• Menu items are now disabled if the command isn’t available. Doh!

6/15/08: WebScripter 2.0.2 Released. This is minor update with the following changes:

• Fixed nasty bug that was over looked in the new file dialog when choosing a new folder.
• Fixed a bug with single file uploading.
• Included new users guide for trial version.
• Minor improvements to the built-in preview with basic navigation and status bar.
• Fixed syntax parser bug in CSS.
• Browsers have a more Leopard look and feel.
• Better looking close boxes for tabs and some panes.
• Fixed some potential crashes when previewing in a new window.

After a total rewrite of 1.0 and a new object-oriented application framework WebScripter 2.0 was released on 5/18/08. This followed the original (and only) 1.0 release on 4/20/06.

The official press release:

June 2nd 2008 - The Alchemist Guild today announced the release of WebScripter IDE 2.0, a web development environment for Mac OS X.

What is WebScripter?

WebScripter is an integrated development environment (IDE) for programming in several popular web scripting languages such as: PERL, PHP, CSS, HTML/XML, JavaScript and Ruby.

WebScripter offers powerful features to help improve productivity and manageability in all areas of the trade, including: text editing, previewing web pages, testing scripts, managing projects, navigating code and FTP integration. Designed with the principal in mind: “everything you need, needs to be where you need it” WebScripter will help give you a place to work where you’re productive and comfortable because you’re surrounded by the tools you need to get the job done.

Text editing is improved over standard editors by robust syntax coloring, scriptable macros that can run UNIX commands, drag and drop snippets and other shortcuts.

Web pages can be previewed from within the application, in external browsers or in real-time while typing.

Scripts such as PERL, PHP and Ruby can be executed and previewed, just like from the command like while helping you handle errors that may occur.

Code is made easier to navigate by the powerful syntax parser which collects information in your files (functions, variables, classes, etc…) and then lets you navigate them by that data.

For testing scripts on the web server, WebScripter features a built-in FTP client that lets you edit files directly on the server, just like a file on your hard disk.

What’s New?

2.0 in an exciting release because everything has changed. The original concept was scrapped and re-designed from the ground up with a modern OS X GUI using tabs for editing and split views for integrating features into a single window. The new design is compact, concise and helps to keep the user in close contact with the experience.

Notable features Include:

• Scriptable macros
• Shell commands
• Auto-complete
• Preview HTML live while typing
• Function popup menu
• Publish files to the web server in one-click
• Built-in FTP support
• Drag & drop code snippets
• Browse projects using symbols
• Organize code using projects
• Error handling for PERL, PHP and Ruby scripts
• Search files by project
• Simulate user input when running scripts
• Pseudo-terminal for testing scripts.
• Execute scripts locally without the internet using Apache
• Preview files in 3 modes

Cost and Requirements:

WebScripter 2.0 is priced for everyone, even students and hobbyists, for US $39 and will run on any Mac with 10.4 or higher installed.

Contact and URL:

Web Page: http://www.web-scripter.com
Developer: Ryan Joseph (ryan@web-scripter.com)
Address: 1739 Mariposa Ave, Boulder CO 80302.

5/27/08: Small but important important update, WebScripter now runs on 10.5 Leopard (PPC Only).