ObjectScript extension for VS Code marks its 0.9 milestone

Hello Developer Community!

I’m pleased to announce the 0.9 release of the ObjectScript extension for Visual Studio Code. Earlier this year I announced that InterSystems would be joining the community in evolving this already popular tool. Since then, we have been hard at work solidifying the code base and building a slew of new features.

Before I get into the details, I’d like to take a moment to thank @Dmitry Maslennikov, @John Murray and the VS Code team at InterSystems for wholeheartedly embracing this new way of collaborating in the open, and working together to build a product that is truly informed by the needs of end users, partners and internal development. I’d also like to thank the “bleeding edge” users that committed to early testing, submitted GitHub issues, and helped us smooth out many of the rough edges in the software.

Now let’s talk about what’s new!

New user documentation

https://intersystems-community.github.io/vscode-objectscript/ is the new home of documentation, and it’s been overhauled and updated extensively.

Better server management

In this version, configuration has changed slightly to better align with the Studio IDE. IRIS and Caché server information is now located in a JSON object called intersystems.servers, while your namespace information is still kept in the objectscript.conn object. More details are in the new documentation’s configuration page.

Secure password storage

We’ve introduced a companion VS Code extension called “InterSystems Server Manager” (thank you @John Murray). It helps you write the intersystems.servers part of the configuration file, but perhaps more importantly, allows you to use a new feature in VS Code that lets you store your passwords encrypted in the key store of the underlying operating system. This is one of the most requested features, and critical for enterprise use.

Server-side source control hooks

The next most requested feature, for those of you used to server-side source control, has been to support that way of working in VS Code. Now you have it via the server-side editing feature.

Developer documentation

Growing the community of developers contributing to the code base is a key part of every open source effort. We want you to be consumers of this tool, and be able to contribute new features and fixes as well. To that end, we’ve created a CONTRIBUTING document to help you get started. I hope you download the source and give it a try.

What’s next

Install version 0.9 and try it out on a project. File issues if you find a problem, or just want to discuss how something works. This is the time to make this IDE the best tool for ObjectScript development available.

Important links

• Installation: https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=intersystems-community.vscode-objectscript
• Documentation: https://intersystems-community.github.io/vscode-objectscript/
• Issues: https://github.com/intersystems-community/vscode-objectscript/issues