JavaScript Syntax Checking from gedit

Jamie — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 14:12:06 +0000

JSLint is a tool for finding problems in JavaScript programs. Unfortunately, to use it, you need to paste your source code into a textarea on a website – less than ideal. This post will explain how to check your JavaScript directly from gedit.

It is based on these instructions for vim, combined with this method to allow piping text into JSLint from the standard input.

1. Install SpiderMonkey
See the build instructions page for installing on many different architectures, or these instructions for quick installations on Ubuntu and CentOS 5.

2. Download JSLint SpiderMonkey Hack Edition
Get this version of JSLint which has been modified to allow piping code from the standard input. Save it somewhere in your home directory, say /home/username/bin/js/jslinthack.js. You’ll also need to make it executable by typing chmod +x /home/username/bin/js/jslinthack.js

3. Enable the External Tools plugin in gedit
Open gedit and click the Edit menu, then choose Preferences. Click the Plugins tab and tick to enable the Extenal Tools plugin.

4. Set up the JSLint External Tool
In gedit, open the Tools menu and click External Tools. Click the New button and give your new tool the name JSLint. Give it a descriptive name like “Check JavaScript source code”. Give it an Accelerator if you wish (mine is Shift+Ctrl+j). Set the Command to the location at which you saved the hacked JSLint file, eg. /home/username/bin/js/jslinthack.js. Set Input to Current Document and set Output to Insert in Output Panel (you’ll need to have the Bottom Panel enabled in gedit’s View menu).

5. Profit!
Open up a JavaScript source file, and either press your Accelarator keyboard shortcut, or go to Tools > JSLint. The results of the syntax check will be output in the bottom panel.

Yoper Linux

Jamie — Mon, 11 Apr 2005 12:00:00 +0000

I am typing this post from within Yoper, a new distribution of GNU/Linux which I have just installed on my laptop. I’ve been using Linux in university for the best part of two years now, but I’ve never found a distro that I’ve really got on with for use at home. Fedora and Mandrake were always too bloated for me – they seem to take the approach of including every bit of software a user could ever possibly need, and as a result are bloated and take up a lot of space. I’ve also tried Slackware, which I love, but its hardware detection system isn’t really up to the task of making my laptop and all my peripherals work correctly, and its Packagetools package management system doesn’t take into account package dependencies, which is annoying. I’ve also briefly tried Gentoo, but got bored after spending 3 hours compiling X and then having to set it all up manually, when I had no idea of the specifications of my laptop’s LCD display. I needed a compromise.

In Yoper, I seem to have found one. The base system is a patched kernel optimised from scratch for i686 architecture (my laptop has a Pentium 4). It uses the Kudzu hardware detection system from Red Hat, package management from Debian (apt-get) and the Synaptic tool. It comes with only the necessary software to get you up and running, but it’s easy to install anything you need from Synaptic. It’s got its own configuration tool (Yoperconf) that pulls together the different tools it uses for modifying your settings.

I’m very impressed so far – it’s extremely fast and talks to most of my hardware without a problem. There are still a few things I’ll need to use Windows for, but I think I’ll be using Yoper a lot more in the future.

j4mie dot org » Linux

JavaScript Syntax Checking from gedit

Yoper Linux