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I got a quite huge JS library whose details I need to be able to understand. Unfortunately, I am quite new to Js development since I am coming from Flash and Flex. It is very hard for me to orient around all the files of the framework. I miss one great advantage of the AS3 support tools - being able to see the actual definition of a given piece of code, and thus start my journey from somewhere. Whatever file I tend to pick up, I have the feeling that they are all mixed up, and I am somewhere in the middle. methods are being called, properties are being set, however, I don't even know where to look for the definitions of those things. I am desperate.

In general, what tips could you suggest for browsing and studying large and distributed pieces of JS code?

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Don't pelt me with stones here - but API documentation is killer. – Danjah May 31 '11 at 23:09
String search is easy to use. Hopefully the code has documentation. You can read it all – Raynos May 31 '11 at 23:21
If you would be under Linux i would recommend grep + cTags but... – JackLeo Jun 2 '11 at 7:47

migrated from stackoverflow.com Jun 2 '11 at 3:47

4 Answers

up vote 1 down vote

Since you're using Eclipse already, I highly recommend Aptana. It's a brilliant, free plug-in for Eclipse that provides tools for HTML, CSS and JavaScript. The JS editor highlights JavaScript keywords and provides tool tips if you hover over them. There's an outline editor that shows the outline of your .js file. You can even enable JSLint, a JavaScript validation script that shows you where your code could be or should be better.

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up vote 1 down vote

also don't forget to use keyboard shortcuts :)

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up vote 0 down vote

Get a good IDE? So you can click around and find definitions without having to search for them. You could also try some code analysis tools but unless the code is really horribad a good IDE should get you started.

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Please, suggest one. I've always been using Eclipse due to my work with Flex – user3308 May 31 '11 at 23:03
I personally use PHPStorm because it's fast, some colleagues use NetBeans. – Frits van Campen May 31 '11 at 23:05
up vote 0 down vote

It depends on the editor, in Geany, you can Ctrl+click a function to go to the function's definition. In Eclipse, F3 jumps to where the selected function is declared.

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