We're making progress on our quest to create the perfect Mac OS X ActionScript editor: Today, we're going to integrate the Adobe AS2 and AS3 Language References directly into the open-source jEdit editor, bringing context-sensitive help files up at the stroke of a key!

The InfoViewer is basically a small browser in a floating or docked panel within jEdit. If you don't already see it, you should be able to find it under your Plugins menu. I prefer to dock mine at the right-hand side of the editor, so it stays out of the way but is generally available. You can do this by selecting the small dropdown arrow in the upper left of any floating dock and choosing which side of the interface on which to dock it:

I've created two macros — one to search for information within the ActionScript 2 reference files, and one for the ActionScript 3 files. You can install them both, or just the one that interests you (I've got them both installed myself, and I've assigned the keyboard shortcuts CMD-F1 to search the AS2 files, and SHIFT-F1 for the AS3 files). To install, you can copy the code below, or simply download and extract the files from this zipped archive and save them in your ~/.jedit/macros directory (or better yet, make a subdirectory called "ActionScript" within the macros folder and keep all your AS macros in one neat section — rather like a TextMate "bundle").

The macro scripts:

// Macro command to search the AS3 Language Reference to find a (likely) page from the manual
// that describes the current "word" and display the result in the InfoViewer panel within jEdit.
// Could be improved, perhaps, but it sure seems to work.
//
// Beanshell script written by Mike Fahy (VeryVito) of Turdhead.com
// and released into the public domain. Yep, free as in beer.
//
// Questions, comments or large amounts of cash may be sent to nospam@turdhead.com
//
// NOTE: These scripts rely on the reference files installed with Adobe Flash CS3.
// If you are using a different version of Flash, are on a system other than OS X
// or have otherwise changed your default path to the ActionScript reference files,
// you must change the value of "folder" below to reflect the correct path.

import java.util.regex.*;

String folder = new String ("/Library/Application Support/Adobe/Flash CS3/en/Configuration/HelpPanel/Help/ActionScriptLangRefV3");

String helpTOC = "help_toc.xml";

textArea.goToPrevCharacter(false);
textArea.selectWord();

String record = null;
String urlToOpen  = null;
String wordToFind = textArea.getSelectedText();
String fileToLoad = null;
String regEx = "level(\\d+)\\s+name\\s*\\=\\s*\"(" + wordToFind + ").*\".*?href\\s*\\=\\s*\"(.*?)\"";

Pattern regPat = Pattern.compile(regEx);
Matcher matcher;
BufferedReader bufr;

try {
	bufr = new BufferedReader (new FileReader (folder + "/" + helpTOC));

	while ( (record = bufr.readLine()) != null ) {
		matcher = regPat.matcher(record);
		if (matcher.find() && (Integer.parseInt(matcher.group(1)) > 2))	{ // I personally don't want to see anything lower than "level2." This may help refine the results a bit.

			fileToLoad = matcher.group(3);

			infoviewer.InfoViewerPlugin.openURL(view, "file://" + folder + "/" +  fileToLoad);
			break;
		}
	} 

	if (fileToLoad == null)	{
		Macros.error(view, "Sorry. No help found in " + folder);
		//infoviewer.InfoViewerPlugin.openURL(view, "file://" + folder + "/help_toc.xml");
	}

}	catch (java.io.IOException e)	{
	Macros.error(view, "An error occurred while trying to parse " + helpTOC);
}

// Macro command to search the AS2 Language Reference to find a (likely) page from the manual
// that describes the current "word" and display the result in the InfoViewer panel within jEdit.
// Could be improved, perhaps, but it sure seems to work.
//
// Beanshell script written by Mike Fahy (VeryVito) of Turdhead.com
// and released into the public domain. Yep, free as in beer.
//
// Questions, comments or large amounts of cash may be sent to nospam@turdhead.com
//
// NOTE: These scripts rely on the reference files installed with Adobe Flash CS3.
// If you are using a different version of Flash, are on a system other than OS X
// or have otherwise changed your default path to the ActionScript reference files,
// you must change the value of "folder" below to reflect the correct path.

import java.util.regex.*;

String folder = new String ("/Library/Application Support/Adobe/Flash CS3/en/Configuration/HelpPanel/Help/ActionScriptLangRefV2");

String helpTOC = "help_toc.xml";

textArea.goToPrevCharacter(false);
textArea.selectWord();

String record = null;
String urlToOpen  = null;
String wordToFind = textArea.getSelectedText();
String fileToLoad = null;
String regEx = "href\\s*\\=\\s*\"(.*?)\"\\s*name\\s*\\=\\s*\"(" + wordToFind + ".*)\"";

Pattern regPat = Pattern.compile(regEx);
Matcher matcher;
BufferedReader bufr;

try {
	bufr = new BufferedReader (new FileReader (folder + "/" + helpTOC));

	while ( (record = bufr.readLine()) != null ) {
		matcher = regPat.matcher(record);
		if (matcher.find())	{

			fileToLoad = matcher.group(1);

			infoviewer.InfoViewerPlugin.openURL(view, "file://" + folder + "/" +  fileToLoad);
			break;
		}
	} 

	if (fileToLoad == null)	{
		Macros.error(view, "Sorry. No help found in " + folder);
		//infoviewer.InfoViewerPlugin.openURL(view, "file://" + folder + "/help_toc.xml");
	}

}	catch (java.io.IOException e)	{
	Macros.error(view, "An error occurred while trying to parse " + helpTOC);
}

To use either of the macros, simply move your cursor to the class, method or property name you need help with (or simply type it in), and run the macro. If the script can find the information requested, it will be displayed within the InfoViewer panel.

Note: If your ActionScript reference files are located somewhere besides the folder indicated in the scripts above (and if you're using Windows, they will be!), you will need to edit the "file" variable to point to the correct directory.

As you might notice, the macros used by jEdit actually use the Java syntax. In fact, it is Java (in a form known as a BeanShell), and it can be pretty dang powerful. In fact, when I first attempted to make macros for my own use, I used a convoluted system of shell scripts, perl scripts and OS X's built-in Apache server to cobble something together to do this (because, frankly, those are the tools I know best). But I quickly realized that unleashing that setup on an unsuspecting public would do little to promote jEdit as an easily extensible tool. Thus, I went back to the drawing board tonight and rewrote the scripts to rely solely on jEdit's native macro language — and I'm impressed with how easy it was to figure out.

If you want to learn more about creating your own macros (and please share them here if you do!), check out the Macro Basics guide at jEdit.org. Meanwhile, enjoy your getting-better-every-day ActionScript environment!