NS:IDE

NS:IDE is the NativeScript IDE that lets you get 'inside' your device.

Access any native functionality at run-time by calling a Javascript API that binds to the Obj-C (iOS) or Java (Android) run-time.

Features

• Made in NativeScript
• Syntax highlighting
• Very dangerous auto-complete functionality based on eval()
• Access to the whole native run-time, fully documented on nativescript.org for both iOS and Android (see note below)
• Potential to introduce TypeScript, if a contributor is feeling brave, or at least TypeScript's auto-completion (NativeScript is fully-typed!)

NOTE: I haven't yet implemented Android support because I lack the expertise to produce a syntax highlighter component for it, but it's perfectly possible in future.

Demo

See my teaser tweet for a video demo.

Example screenshots

Setup

This project assumes the following folder hierarchy:

.
├── nside
└── nativescript-syntax-highlighter

Where nside is this git repository, and nativescript-syntax-highlighter is the git repository of my NativeScript Syntax Highlighter plugin. That is to say, they are expected to be siblings.

Get my NativeScript Syntax Highlighter plugin

I haven't published it to npm, so you'll have to clone it from here:

git clone git@github.com:shirakaba/nativescript-syntax-highlighter.git

Install NS:IDE dependencies

In the root directory for this project (nside), run this command:

npm install

And then maybe make yourself one of these: ☕️

Run

To run for iOS (Android is not supported yet):

# This is shorthand for "prepare, build and deploy".
tns run ios

And now maybe make yourself one of these: 🍵

Full documentation for tns run ios here. Useful flags to pass:

• --hmr: activates hot module reloading (I highly recommend it).
• --clean: forces a complete rebuild. Useful if you run into caching problems.
• --emulator: instructs NativeScript to run the app in the iOS Simulator even if you have your device connected.

Licence

The NativeScript libraries are Apache-licensed (NativeScript-Licence.txt), whereas this project itself use a GPL 3 licence LICENCE.txt.

More of my stuff

• LinguaBrowse (iOS) on the App Store – made in Swift
• LinguaBrowse (macOS) on the App Store – made in React Native + TypeScript + Swift
• Plucky Box (iOS) on the App Store, GitHub, expo.io as Android/iOS – made in React Native + TypeScript
• @LinguaBrowse – my Twitter account. I talk about NativeScript, React Native, TypeScript, Chinese, Japanese, and my apps on there.