IDL Editors

IDL devoted editors:

• Eclipse CORBA Plugin (ECP) (Eclipse plugin)
  • Syntax highlighting
  • Outline view
  • Auto-completion and compiler integration is planned for future releases
  • Works with Eclipse 3.2
• MemClipse (Eclipse plugin)
  • Syntax highlighting
  • Integration with JacORB and JavaIDL compilers
  • Works with Eclipse 3.1
• ORB Studio (Eclipse plugin)
  • Syntax highlighting
  • Integration with the following compilers: Borland Enterprise Server (aka. !VisiBroker), IONA Orbix, Java IDL, JacORB and Open ORB
  • Works with Eclipse 3.1
  • Requires Java SE 1.5

Any text editor that supports custom syntax highlighting can help to write and to understand IDL interfaces. A full and comprehensive list of editors and features can be found in the Wikipedia.

Some of them are:

• XEmacs
  • Native support for .idl files
  • Syntax highlighting
  • Automatic code folding
  • Can invoke compilers or other tools
  • Linux and Windows versions
• Vim
  • Native support for .idl files
  • Syntax highlighting
  • Can invoke compilers or other tools
  • Linux and Windows versions.
• Notepad++
  • Custom syntax highlighting
  • Simple code folding
  • Simple Auto-completion
  • To configure the syntax highlight and auto-completion two files are needed. The syntax configuration attachment:userDefineLang.xml that should be copied to the !ApplicationData directory (the name changes depending on the windows language -in spanish is Datos de Programa) and the idl keywords file attachment:idl.api that should reside in the Notepad++ install directory within the subdirectory plugins\APIs.
  • Requires Windows