# Any news about script editor improvments? **URL:** \ **Category:** Ignition\ **Tags:** ignition81, scripting\ **Created:** [December 9, 2021, 8:36pm UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/any-news-about-script-editor-improvments/53970 "2021-12-09T20:36:09Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![mazeyrat](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/inductiveautomation/user_avatar/forum.inductiveautomation.com/mazeyrat/32/10955_2.png) [@mazeyrat](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/u/mazeyrat)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2021, 8:36pm UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/any-news-about-script-editor-improvments/53970/1 "2021-12-09T20:36:09Z")
Any news about this feature request ? > **[script editor improvments | Voters | Inductive Automation](https://ideas.inductiveautomation.com/ignition-features-and-ideas/p/script-editor-improvments)** ---
**Author:** ![YF129701](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/inductiveautomation/user_avatar/forum.inductiveautomation.com/yf129701/32/60498_2.png) [@YF129701](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/u/YF129701)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2021, 8:44pm UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/any-news-about-script-editor-improvments/53970/2 "2021-12-09T20:44:23Z")
If I remember correctly, at the most recent ICC Developer Panel, they were talking about exposing the underlying script files to the end user and then they could be opened in your favorite text editor. I may be way off here, I just remember something like that being said. ---
**Author:** ![bkarabinchak.psi](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/inductiveautomation/user_avatar/forum.inductiveautomation.com/bkarabinchak.psi/32/83567_2.png) [@bkarabinchak.psi](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/u/bkarabinchak.psi)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2021, 8:47pm UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/any-news-about-script-editor-improvments/53970/3 "2021-12-09T20:47:30Z")
If I could use VS Code, I’d be very happy ---
**Author:** ![Kevin.Herron](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/inductiveautomation/user_avatar/forum.inductiveautomation.com/kevin.herron/32/7259_2.png) [@Kevin.Herron](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/u/Kevin.Herron)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2021, 8:50pm UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/any-news-about-script-editor-improvments/53970/4 "2021-12-09T20:50:55Z")
There’s an in-progress ticket to update the editor component and use it everywhere that a code editor is displayed but I don’t know if it includes any of the improvements mentioned in the feature request. @paul-griffith might know more. ---
**Author:** ![pturmel](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/inductiveautomation/user_avatar/forum.inductiveautomation.com/pturmel/32/3295_2.png) [@pturmel](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/u/pturmel)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2021, 8:52pm UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/any-news-about-script-editor-improvments/53970/5 "2021-12-09T20:52:16Z")
Paul has shared progress before. Maybe a sabbatical is in order to finish up? @paul-griffith ? ---
**Author:** ![paul-griffith](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/inductiveautomation/user_avatar/forum.inductiveautomation.com/paul-griffith/32/37249_2.png) [@paul-griffith](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/u/paul-griffith)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2021, 9:42pm UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/any-news-about-script-editor-improvments/53970/6 "2021-12-09T21:42:06Z")
Right now, updating the built-in editors is in progress (awaiting QA). It’s far from complete, but it adds a lot of ‘smarts’ to basic stuff. Some of what I’d like to add will have to wait for 8.2, because of limitations in APIs such as third party scripting modules. I would _love_ to make the designer an [LSP](https://microsoft.github.io/language-server-protocol/) _client_, which would allow offloading a lot of tasks to external editors; but to do that we’d have to push designer-local resources to disk somewhere, and there’s some tricky complications there. Similar complications exist for pushing files to disk and opening in external editors; in addition, opening an external editor such as VS Code wouldn’t work perfectly without some doing because: 1. you wouldn’t have your project scripts in the right spots, and 2. you wouldn’t have autocompletion for any system functions, and 3. you wouldn’t have autocompletion for any Java libraries. Doing that properly might require the designer acting as an LSP **server** , which is also a big task. ---
**Author:** ![mazeyrat](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/inductiveautomation/user_avatar/forum.inductiveautomation.com/mazeyrat/32/10955_2.png) [@mazeyrat](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/u/mazeyrat)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2022, 12:41pm UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/any-news-about-script-editor-improvments/53970/7 "2022-01-14T12:41:12Z")
@PGriffith IMHO, script editor most eagerly awaited reasonable improvements are as follow: - Auto complete for user package - function/block code folding - generate comments for function/method (like in PyCharm) - scope selector - more color highlight (#TODO, …) - add multiselection for tag and property in script code windows, to insert a list of paths ---
**Author:** ![paul-griffith](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/inductiveautomation/user_avatar/forum.inductiveautomation.com/paul-griffith/32/37249_2.png) [@paul-griffith](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/u/paul-griffith)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2022, 10:03pm UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/any-news-about-script-editor-improvments/53970/8 "2022-05-13T22:03:24Z")
The new script editing experience just got merged (to release in 8.1.18). You’ll be able to preview the changes in the next nightly build that goes out. On Monday I’ll post a full thread detailing the changes. ---
**Author:** ![paul-griffith](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/inductiveautomation/user_avatar/forum.inductiveautomation.com/paul-griffith/32/37249_2.png) [@paul-griffith](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/u/paul-griffith)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2022, 10:47pm UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/any-news-about-script-editor-improvments/53970/9 "2022-05-13T22:47:17Z")
In the meantime, some hype: [https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/inductiveautomation/original/3X/b/d/bd8586c45ceb34059a6747dbfa472308408ccc61.mp4](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/inductiveautomation/original/3X/b/d/bd8586c45ceb34059a6747dbfa472308408ccc61.mp4) [https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/inductiveautomation/original/3X/d/3/d334e39e878e08fa73e4275025448757e4f0137c.mp4](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/inductiveautomation/original/3X/d/3/d334e39e878e08fa73e4275025448757e4f0137c.mp4) [https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/inductiveautomation/original/3X/7/0/707ec949fcd25b9c7d8423d065f6f273c9cb16e2.mp4](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/inductiveautomation/original/3X/7/0/707ec949fcd25b9c7d8423d065f6f273c9cb16e2.mp4) ---
**Author:** ![pturmel](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/inductiveautomation/user_avatar/forum.inductiveautomation.com/pturmel/32/3295_2.png) [@pturmel](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/u/pturmel)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2022, 5:12am UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/any-news-about-script-editor-improvments/53970/10 "2022-05-14T05:12:02Z")
> [@paul-griffith](#): > > On Monday I’ll post a full thread detailing the changes. Yay! A bright spot for my first day back from vacation. /: ---
**Author:** ![mazeyrat](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/inductiveautomation/user_avatar/forum.inductiveautomation.com/mazeyrat/32/10955_2.png) [@mazeyrat](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/u/mazeyrat)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2022, 6:20am UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/any-news-about-script-editor-improvments/53970/11 "2022-05-14T06:20:52Z")
That looks awesome ! ---
**Author:** ![nminchin](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/inductiveautomation/user_avatar/forum.inductiveautomation.com/nminchin/32/6911_2.png) [@nminchin](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/u/nminchin)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2022, 7:40am UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/any-news-about-script-editor-improvments/53970/12 "2022-05-14T07:40:15Z")
Looks great, will this work for custom libraries and functions as well? ---
**Author:** ![paul-griffith](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/inductiveautomation/user_avatar/forum.inductiveautomation.com/paul-griffith/32/37249_2.png) [@paul-griffith](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/u/paul-griffith)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2022, 3:10pm UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/any-news-about-script-editor-improvments/53970/13 "2022-05-16T15:10:15Z")
Not in this first round of improvements (a lot of which was “behind the scenes” work to make things easier to improve down the road), but that’s probably the next thing I’ll tackle. Right now it’s somewhat improved `system` function completions, completions for Python’s builtins, and much smarter contextual awareness of things like extension function arguments - plus, like I said, a lot of ground work to make future enhancements easier. ---
**Author:** ![kgamble](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/inductiveautomation/user_avatar/forum.inductiveautomation.com/kgamble/32/8019_2.png) [@kgamble](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/u/kgamble)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2022, 9:03pm UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/any-news-about-script-editor-improvments/53970/14 "2022-05-16T21:03:48Z")
> [@paul-griffith](#): > > I would _love_ to make the designer an [LSP](https://microsoft.github.io/language-server-protocol/) _client_ , which would allow offloading a lot of tasks to external editors; but to do that we’d have to push designer-local resources to disk somewhere, and there’s some tricky complications there. > > Similar complications exist for pushing files to disk and opening in external editors; in addition, opening an external editor such as VS Code wouldn’t work perfectly without some doing because: 1. you wouldn’t have your project scripts in the right spots, and 2. you wouldn’t have autocompletion for any system functions, and 3. you wouldn’t have autocompletion for any Java libraries. > Doing that properly might require the designer acting as an LSP **server** , which is also a big task. This would be one of the best scripting enhancements I can think about for the platform IMO. Building software tools using Ignition as a platform would become immensely easier and really help expand the communities capabilities into more software focused workflows. ---
**Author:** ![Bradley\_Phillips](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ad7895/32.png) [@Bradley\_Phillips](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/u/Bradley_Phillips)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2022, 9:26am UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/any-news-about-script-editor-improvments/53970/15 "2022-11-03T09:26:29Z")
It looks like [César Román](https://github.com/thecesrom) has already addressed the following issues > 1. you wouldn’t have your project scripts in the right spots, and 2. you wouldn’t have autocompletion for any system functions, and 3. you wouldn’t have autocompletion for any Java libraries. with his [ignition stubs project](https://github.com/ignition-api/stubs) I don't know that would go with break points etc vscode can also be embedded in a modern web browser so might be possible to embed vscode (or a tweaked vscode version) in chromium, in ignition, to provide a more 'integrated' experience ---
**Author:** ![Bradley\_Phillips](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ad7895/32.png) [@Bradley\_Phillips](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/u/Bradley_Phillips)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2022, 9:28am UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/any-news-about-script-editor-improvments/53970/16 "2022-11-03T09:28:20Z")
IMO, ignition scripters should be encouraged to write against stubs and mocks, along with a test suite. Then, use external version control with pipelines to perform automated testing. ---
**Author:** ![alec](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/inductiveautomation/user_avatar/forum.inductiveautomation.com/alec/32/41994_2.png) [@alec](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/u/alec)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2023, 2:34pm UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/any-news-about-script-editor-improvments/53970/17 "2023-05-23T14:34:47Z")
Not sure if we got anywhere on this but I would also love to edit scripts directly through vscode. I tend to copy scripts over for quicker editing but sucks not having the intellisense for the ignition specific functions. ---
**Author:** ![Tim\_Carlton](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/inductiveautomation/user_avatar/forum.inductiveautomation.com/tim_carlton/32/52835_2.png) [@Tim\_Carlton](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/u/Tim_Carlton)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2023, 2:59pm UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/any-news-about-script-editor-improvments/53970/18 "2023-05-23T14:59:50Z")
Rename Variable refactoring and a linter would be huge. ---
**Author:** ![Jordan\_Mungo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/439d5e/32.png) [@Jordan\_Mungo](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/u/Jordan_Mungo)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2023, 5:28pm UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/any-news-about-script-editor-improvments/53970/19 "2023-05-23T17:28:57Z")
There is an Inductive Automation library available, I can't remember what it is called off the top of my head. You can run pip install if you find the package name on pypi. You can import the packages for it at the top while working so that VSCode Intellisense works, and then delete those import lines from the top when you're done. That's what I've done in the past ---
**Author:** ![pascal.fragnoud](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/inductiveautomation/user_avatar/forum.inductiveautomation.com/pascal.fragnoud/32/24728_2.png) [@pascal.fragnoud](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/u/pascal.fragnoud)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2023, 5:35pm UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/any-news-about-script-editor-improvments/53970/20 "2023-05-23T17:35:44Z")
I think it's called incendium. [Next page](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/any-news-about-script-editor-improvments/53970.md?page=2)