LSL Alternate Editors
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There are several off-world editors available for free or purchase. Some have syntax highlighting for LSL that will make your code easier to follow. At least two will compile and execute a large subset of LSL. Below are some of the more popular editors for use with LSL.
If you have a favorite that is missing from the list, please feel free to add it.
Online LSL Generators
Online LSL generators create and edit LSL scripts via a website, some may have syntax highlighting for better reading. Sites are multi-platform editors without downloads:
Syntax Highlighting Files
These projects may have more current LSL highlighting files:
LSL Integrated Development Environments (coding and testing environments)
LslPre
LslPre is a full featured LSL script editor, preprocessor and optimiser for windows.
LSL Editor Community Edition
LSL Editor Community Edition for Windows is a standalone LSL script editor, compiler and debugger. Binary and Source as of 4-29-2010.
Its compiler and debugger are already now reasonably accurate. Please blog any LSL-Editor bugs you find into such places as our LSL-Editor Bugs article or via the project's SourceForge bug tracker located at: Bug Tracker.
- Alphons van der Heijden, author of LSLEditor, the great off-line editor and debugging tool for scripting in Second Life, has donated his opus magnum to the free and open source community where it can grow and keep pace with the SL platform!.
- Details, executable and source can be found at http://sourceforge.net/projects/lsleditor/
Development of LSL-Editor was originally done by Alphons van der Heijden at http://www.lsleditor.org/.
Con-Wylies-Script-Generator
- Con Wylie's LSL Script Generator has been ported from a website into a free downloadable program.
Con Wylie's LSL program is multi-platform on Windows, Linux and Mac. The generator, editor and compiler has been build from the ground up to give the user ease of use.
LSL-Plus
For Windows, Mac, and Linux, the LSL Plus Eclipse plugin is a Editor/Unit Test environment for LSL implemented in Eclipse. It is a FLOSS project (Free/Libre Open Source Software). The latest release (0.13.0 - 2010-01-06) features multi-script execution with source level debugging (setting breakpoints, single stepping through code, examining variables on the call stack, etc.), making it unique among LSL IDEs. It now supports both multi-script execution in a simulated environment (with avatars, prims, inventory, (limited) physics, etc.) and unit testing - allowing you to test individual handlers and functions by precisely controlling the setup/teardown and interaction with the execution environment (including support for 'mocking' the LL function call that interact with the script environment). It also has some additional code management features that encourage code re-use without having to cut-and-paste, as well as code optimization (inlining, constant folding).
By using the Eclipse IDE you get features such as integration with source code control systems like CVS or Subversion, task management, integration with 3rd party bug tracking software, and so on. It supports development on Windows, Mac, and Linux platforms.
- Missing bracket matching and certain highlighting features.
LSLForge
LSLForge Eclipse For Windows/Linux/OS X, LSLForge is a derivative of LSL-Plus, forked in September 2011. LSLForge aims to further advance and mature the LSL-Plus project and support the Eclipse LSL developer community.
Off-world syntax checker
You can build a syntax checker yourself and hook it into whatever editor you fancy if you have the viewer source installed and compiled on your machine. The C++ source to build one yourself is here (JB Kraft).
Multi-platform Editors
ByronStar SL
Based on Eclipse, the ByronStar SL IDE includes most modern program editor features. It also includes custom features for LSL, such as variable checking, error markers, and code formatting. Eclipse is available for Macintosh, Linux, Windows, and many UNIX flavors.
- No longer maintained.
Emacs
There's an Emacs LSL Mode available on this wiki, which provides syntax highlighting and indentation features. If you want some tips on writing LSL in emacs, read Xah Lee's page. Emacs is available for many Unix flavors, Macintosh and Windows.
You may come across (and attempt to use) Gary Evan's LSL major mode. It won't work with the Linden Scripting Language, as Gary wrote it for the Larch Shared Language.
vim
vim: vi improved. A multi-platform evolution of the most classical of the editors: vi. GPL code.
Plugins for VIM for install the syntax, autocompletion, autoident for LSL script into vim
JOE
Joe's Own Editor (a.k.a. Joe) is a comand line editor for unixoid systems. See User:Zai Lynch/LSL highlighting in Joe for a manual and syntax file download.
SciTE
Easy to use, features syntax highlighting, folding, auto complete, help that opens the appropriate wiki page, and is setup to use the c preprocessor, and lslint.
Windows only SciTE-ez
Files for Linux or Windows Forum thread scite_lsl.tar.gz
jEdit
Developed in Java, this mature, cross-platform editor runs on any operating system with a Java 2 version 1.3 or higher virtual machine. It has all the features you'd expect from a full-GUI text editor. Syntax highlighting and tailored editing behavior is supported through "modes." (You can get the LSL 'modes' file here updated 5-Feb-09.) The editor supports a rich plug-in API; many third-party plug-ins exist to facility editing, formatting, communications, etc.
You can find jEdit here.
Shill - LSL syntax files for a variety of editors
The Shill project provides up-to-date syntax files for many LSL editors. You might find files there that are more current than those here on the wiki. Last update: 19Aug09 for Second Life 1.23.4. New in this release: lslint
Midnight Commander
GNU Midnight Commander (mc) is a free cross-platform orthodox file manager and a clone of Norton Commander.
Midnight Commander is a console application with a text user interface.
OS: Unix-like, Microsoft Windows
For Linux see User:Kuraiko_Yoshikawa/sandbox/LSL_Goodies/mc for a manual and syntax file download.
UltraEdit-32/UEStudio [C]
UltraEdit-32/UEStudio is a powerful text, HTML, and HEX editor. It is a commercial editor with a 30 day trial version available at the website. Important features:
- column/block mode editing
- brackets/braces matching
- code-folding
- configurable syntax highlighting via custom wordfiles
- autocomplete (using keywords defined in the wordfile)
- bookmarks, incremental searching, CTAG support
- automatic conversion between Unix/Dos/MAC/UTF-8, etc
- built-in FTP/SFTP client
OS: Linux, Mac and Windows.
The following syntax files are available for UltraEdit
- User:Lum Pfohl/LSL Syntax Highlighting For UltraEdit Last updated November 28th, 2007.
- Ultraedit Syntax Highlighting (2011-06-22 updated)
Windows Editors
e
The e Editor is a port of TextMate to Windows, and can use the TextMate LSL bundle listed below.
Notepad++
Notepad++ is probably one of the best Windows editor around. Packed with features, extremely powerful and easy to use for beginners too. Best of all, it is GPL code.
Shan Bright's Notepad++ LSL syntax file 'BrightLSL' is at the Bright Corporation website: BrightLSL (Updated December 10, 2010)
Nexii Malthus's Notepad++ LSL syntax file, includes latest functions and constants [1] (3rd December, 2011)
WhiteStar Magic's Notepad++ LSL syntax file is being updated again after a brief hiatus, and is available on Github: NotePad---userdef (March 11, 2012)
ConTEXT
ConTEXT is a small, fast and powerful freeware text editor, developed mainly to serve as secondary tool for software developers.
The following syntax files are available for ConTEXT.
- Shyan Graves Last updated March 01, 2007.
- Sir.Grelling Last updated July 10, 2006.
Crimson Editor
Crimson Editor is a professional source code editor for Windows. The following syntax files are available for Crimson Editor.
- Aakanaar Last updated September 10, 2006 for Second Life version 1.10.0.
LSL-Editor
LSL-Editor is a standalone Windows LSL editor, compiler and debugger. All the usual editing, plus you can compile and execute.
- Not maintained.
TextPad [C]
TextPad is a powerful, but easy to use general purpose text editor. It is a commercial product, but there is a 30 day trial version available for free on the website.
The following syntax files are available for TextPad.
- Prodigal Maeterlinck & Patrick2 Chama Last updated February 20, 2007. Extracted from the Second Life viewer source code.
- Ben Gray Last updated August 23, 2006. As of version 1.12.0, with the deprecated functions in a separate keyword list.
- Matthias Huber Last updated September 23, 2004.
- Events ClipBook Last updated March 5, 2007. Based on the LSL Portal event entries.
EditPad Pro [C]
EditPad Pro is a text editor with many great features for programming. It is a commercial program, with a demo version available. There is also a Lite version, but that has no syntax-highlighting support.
There is an LSL syntax file available for download from inside the program. However, it is from October 2006 so some new features may not be available.
Macintosh Editors
TextMate [C]
TextMate is a commercial text/program editor from Macromates (30 day trial available). You can find details about Piero Padar's well-maintained LSL bundle in the Scripting Tips forum archive.
SubEthaEdit [C]
This a great text editor with extensible language support. It also happens to be an incredible collaborative editor. Info at: http://www.subethaedit.net/
There is a contributed LSL mode by Zarf Vantongerloo. The mode is a little out of date and could use some love. But in general works great, doing syntax hilighting of LSL funcitons and adding a pop-up menu of all functions, states and event handlers to the top of the window.
An updated LSL mode by Mark Lentczner is available now from the SubEthaEditor User contributed modes Repository.
Coda [C]
Coda is 'one-window web development,' but it's a very pleasing text editor for a wide variety of uses. You can set up 'sites' which are web sites, but can represent any remote filesystem, which is echoed locally through ftp and/or subversion.
Coda can use SubEthaEdit syntax coloring 'modes,' so LSL is supported. Also available is a plug-in editor which lets you run arbitrary scripts on the selection or document.
BBEdit and TextWrangler
You can get an LSL language plugin for all versions of BBEdit and TextWrangler at Erik Scholtz' Blog
For older versions of BBEdit (7.0 or less) and TextWrangler (1.0 only), there is a module available at http://adammarker.org/bbedit
Linux Editors
Kate
Kate is an advanced text editor for KDE. Usually included in all KDE based distributions.
A Kate LSL Mode is available on this wiki.
Gedit
Gedit is an advanced text editor for GNOME.
See User:Kuraiko_Yoshikawa/sandbox/LSL_Goodies/gedit for a manual, syntax file and Color Theme download.
Nano
Nano is a curses-based text editor for Unix and Unix-like systems.
Since February 2001, nano is an official part of the GNU Project.
See User:Kuraiko_Yoshikawa/sandbox/LSL_Goodies/nano for a manual and syntax file download.
Features Table
Name | Integrated development environment | Platforms | Code Completion | Highlighting | Actively Maintained |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Con-Wylies-Script-Generator | Yes | Windows/Linux/Mac | Yes | Yes | Yes |
LSL-Plus | Yes | Multi-Platform | Yes | Yes | No |
LSLForge | Yes | Windows/Linux/OS X | Yes | Yes | Yes |
LSL-Editor | Yes | Windows-Only | Custom Vars and Functions also | Yes | No |
LslPre | Yes | Windows(.Net) | Yes | Yes | Yes |