IDE for JavaScript development

Question

What do you suggest for JS development IDE. Is there something similar to VisualStudio IDE, so I can run/debug my application in it?

Answer 1

A few options:

• Visual Studio 2008 (including VWD Express, http://www.berniecode.com/blog/2007/03/08/how-to-debug-javascript-with-visual-web-developer-express/)
• Adobe Dreamweaver CS4
• Notepad++ (or any other text editor), Firefox and Firebug

Answer 2

I've found Aptana Studio to be good.

Answer 3

Eclipse and JSEclipse plugin and of course Firefox + Firebug the ultimate duo. You'll find this development setup satisfactory.

Answer 4

Firebug and a good syntax highlighting text editor is about the best combo. It's not necessary to add in much else. With just this combo you get:

• Ability to set breakpoints
• Inspect objects
• Traverse the DOM
• Alter CSS rules on the fly
• See network traffic/responses
• Evaluate and substitute code on the fly in production

And there are tools which add on to Firebug:

• YSlow - Determine "why" your page is slow
• Fireunit - Run unit tests

One of the advantage of Javascript development is that it's flexible and you can get instantaneous feedback while developing. I see no reason to get in the way of that by adding an IDE which includes a "deployment" step.

Answer 5

Netbeans 6.x and Firefox+Firebug

In the past I used Aptana Standalone or as a Eclipse plugin. The Pro version has some nice addons like the embedded IE (to the always embedded Firefox) and debugging support for both browsers. I found after hours of testing, that Suns Netbeans is the best PHP and Python IDE for Windows and Linux. I was surprised that also Javascript support can hold the candle to Aptana. So Netbeans is my recommendation (not only for Javascript).

Give it a try, its free!

Answer 6

I think IntellJ's JavaScript support is excellent, just like everything else that they do.

Answer 7

Komodo IDE (or the free Komodo Edit if you can live without an integrated debugger) are pretty nice.

Answer 8

I tried few IDE last week and NetBeans is my winner. It got silent upload option for file upload in background. And very good code completion, folding, etc.

Answer 9

Aptana is a great IDE as it will provide intelli-sense for CSS, javascript, html, java, etc. The debugger gives you the choice to run in FF or IE and is a full featured debugger. The community edition allows you to run a server side javascript as well. A very solid and feature rich platform for free.

Answer 10

I tend to recommand more and more Netbeans that has not been proposed yet (I am blind sometimes). Netbeans is developed by Sun and support not only Java but also a few other languages (PHP,Ruby,Python, Javascript).

I use it for a while now and I am very satisfied. It is fast, provides code completion and integers easily major JS libraries (Prototype, YUI). It has also a debugger that you can tight to FF or IE.

Try it you won't be disappointed!

Answer 11

At JetBrains we've just developed lightweight HTML/Javascript/CSS IDE WebStorm that includes very smart JavaScript Editor with DOM-based autocompletion and HTML5 API support. It allows you to debug(breakpoints supported) and run your scripts directly from IDE.