NSIS editor

Is there a editor out there to create scripts for NSIS that's current with the latest 2. build?

I found one that uses the eclipse editor. its a program that makes Andriod programs but the IDE works with the NSIS plugin.

HM NIS Edit is an older program but it has good syntax highlighting, which I've been using since 2005.

I tried it but it was missing some syntax data from the current compiler.

Originally Posted by JasonFriday13 View Post

HM NIS Edit is an older program but it has good syntax highlighting, which I've been using since 2005.

That's fine, I use it because it's simple and takes very little configuration to use. I haven't used Eclipse but it's plugin nature makes it easier to keep up to date.

I might consider writing my own editor in C to replace HM NIS Edit (written in Delphi 5). I might even use wxWidgets so it works on Linux as well.

Originally Posted by JasonFriday13 View Post

That's fine, I use it because it's simple and takes very little configuration to use. I haven't used Eclipse but it's plugin nature makes it easier to keep up to date.

I might consider writing my own editor in C to replace HM NIS Edit (written in Delphi 5). I might even use wxWidgets so it works on Linux as well.

its sourceforge so i know the source is there you just need the data struct to conver to C.

I would love to see an up to date IDE that works as the compiler gets updated.

I think the major part would be writing the syntax highlighting and analyzing part, the rest is mostly UI stuff. I don't know Delphi, so trying to decipher the source to port it properly would probably take longer than a clean-room based approach.

i was refering to the data structures. Then again a syntax.ini file would work with in depth sub text for mouse over that explains the syntax.

Originally Posted by JasonFriday13 View Post

I think the major part would be writing the syntax highlighting and analyzing part, the rest is mostly UI stuff. I don't know Delphi, so trying to decipher the source to port it properly would probably take longer than a clean-room based approach.

There is a updated syntax file for v2.4x somewhere on the forum or wiki.

I just made one for somewhere between v3.0b0 and v3.0b1.

I recommend Sublime Text. I don't see the point installing a software you can only use to create NSIS scripts, while it doesn't offer any benefit over any other editor available (InstallOptions editor is hardly such a benefit since it's been declared obsolete).



Sublime Text is available for Windows, OS X and Linux, comes with syntax highlighting, command completion, build system and most useful snippets. NSIS plugins (including support for nsL Assember or BridleNSIS) are available through Package Control or GitHub. On top of that you can use most plugins in online code editors such as Ace (formerly Mozilla Bespin) and other modern editors like GitHub's own Atom.

See the NSIS Wiki for more screenshots!

PS: You can use Sublime Text indefinitely without paying at the cost of a nag-screen once per day, which I find –considering the editor's basic capabilites– more than fair

Originally Posted by Yathosho View Post

I don't see the point installing a software you can only use to create NSIS scripts

Compile & Run; I would not use a editor that does not support this. The syntax highlighting in HMNE is not that good because it is not context sensitive so it will highlight a parameter even if it does not apply to that particular instruction.

Originally Posted by Yathosho View Post

PS: You can use Sublime Text indefinitely without paying at the cost of a nag-screen once per day, which I find –considering the editor's basic capabilites– more than fair

Not really:

Sublime Text 2 may be downloaded and evaluated for free, however a license must be purchased for continued use

Personally, I evaluated it for a year and bought a license when the first Sublime Text 3 betas came out. Anyway, that's not the point. I just wanted to point to an excellent alternative to HM NIS Edit. Even when I was mostly using a Windows computer, I even preferred Notepad++ over HM NIS Edit, the latter which I abandoned when nsDialogs became available, since the former was already more useful and had the all of the latter's features. Even vim or emacs already support NSIS 3.0a syntax.

In end, I just think everybody should try a couple of available editors and see what suits them best. And there is plenty to choose from: http://nsis.sourceforge.net/Category...t_Environments

I used HMNE in the past, then EditPlus and now I'm using SciTe with a custom makensisandrun builder.

I might give Sublime Text 3 a try if I can figure out how to override things that come from a package...

If I do decide to go ahead and write an editor based on wxWidgets, I can use the Scintilla wrapper module already included with wxWidgets (SciTe uses Scintilla). For development I would use the nsis build system (NSIS Menu uses wxWidgets) as I'm lazy and don't want to build a stand-alone build system just yet 🙄.

Originally Posted by JasonFriday13 View Post

If I do decide to go ahead and write an editor based on wxWidgets, I can use the Scintilla wrapper module already included with wxWidgets (SciTe uses Scintilla).

I started working on a Scintilla based NSIS editor a while back but I ran into some Scintilla problems. The plan was to use background loading/saving and all that fancy stuff and only have one Scintilla window and multiple Scintilla documents (swap when you switch tabs) but something related to saving/restoring multiple? rectangle? selections prevented this from working 100% so I'd recommend using one Scintilla window per tab.

Also, the readonly mode is a bit stupid, it is also readonly to the programmer so a output pane cannot be readonly and therefore the user can mess with it while you are appending the compiler output!

A Notepad2 port (on our wiki?) probably has some Scintilla NSIS syntax support you might want to take a look at.

Cheers, that's something else I can look at for the highlighting.

I'm considering building a custom syntax engine by modifying the sources used in nsis, and including the same headers from makensis for the tokens, to strip it down to a straight analyzer. Then it's just the link between this and the text control, which I'm also considering building from scratch, which will probably end up being merged into one. This will give the editor the same scope and context that makensis expects.

svn is no help here, all it shows in the diff file is the extra line in Sconstruct for building the editor (yeah, I've already setup the basic build environment for it based off NSIS Menu).

For now the working title is NSIS Editor (how imaginative 😛 ).

have you heard about this project? sounds interesting..

Interesting. I don't know Haskell so it's not much use to me, but the idea looks cool.

It looks like there is no good editor for NSIS so everyone wants to write his own 🙂

I also started writing the NSIS editor 🙂 I wrote Visual & Installer which is a MS Visual Studio extension so it supports all the stuff like syntax highlighting, code completion, compile and build but even more like regions, code collapsing, braces matching, go-to, etc etc.
Check www.visual-installer.com for more details.

Yeah, I'm using wxWidgets so hopefully it will work on linux, mac, and windows. I'm slowly doing bits on it. I already have the basic layout of the gui, and wxWidgets already provides closeable tabs, and auto-sizing scrollable windows (which I'm painting directly onto the background) based on a virtual size, plus auto paint clipping. I have the piece-chain code from catch22.net, and after a few minor mods it's cross-platform.

Next is figuring out how to translate the info into wxWidgets code ready to be painted, and writing the painting code from scratch. Then syntax highlighting (plus reading the OutFile line for installer execution on windows), then I can think about implementing the editing side (including the cursor, selecting, copying, pasting, and deleting text).

This is a long term learning project for me. I don't actually like C++ as it's teaching me some bad habit's that I can't use in vanilla C, plus I keep getting out-of-context class errors, which for me are hard to diagnose.

T.Slappy

Check www.visual-installer.com for more details.

This editor is paid ! This unpleasant nonsense. Draft NSIS - free without any commerce.

Originally Posted by stass View Post

T.Slappy

This editor is paid ! This unpleasant nonsense. Draft NSIS - free without any commerce.

🙁 Yes, it is paid.

As Visual Studio is commercial product there are many fees and costs (for us as developer of V&I). But I hope many users who use Visual Studio will find NSIS useful so NSIS community will grow.

VS is the best IDE for developing/programming and NSIS is the best tool for creating software installations.
The idea was to include whole NSIS building process into Visual Studio - I wanted to easier life of many developers so they can use both systems in one place 🙂