IntelliSense and #Included VBS file

[Jim Rodgers]

It's perhaps not the end of the World, but I find it annoying
that I lose IntelliSense when I reference Subs and Functions
I have moved to an #Included file.

Does anyone know of a reasonable way to restore the IntelliSense
feature in this case?

Thanks for your thoughts...

Jim Rodgers

 

[Evertjan.]

=?Utf-8?B?SmltIFJvZGdlcnM=?= wrote on 14 aug 2007 in
microsoft.public.inetserver.asp.general:

It's perhaps not the end of the World, but I find it annoying
that I lose IntelliSense when I reference Subs and Functions
I have moved to an #Included file.

Does anyone know of a reasonable way to restore the IntelliSense
feature in this case?

On your server, Jim?

Do servers have IntelliSense features in any case?

 

[Dave Anderson]

It's perhaps not the end of the World, but I find it annoying
that I lose IntelliSense when I reference Subs and Functions
I have moved to an #Included file.

Does anyone know of a reasonable way to restore the IntelliSense
feature in this case?

Use .asp to name your includes. We use a naming convention like this:

<!-- #include file="MyInclude.VBS.inc.asp" -->

This has many benefits beyond Intellisense. You can see by the filename that
is it an include file written in VBScript. The ASP extension ensures that
asp.dll parses the script if someone correctly guesses the name and path of
the include (in IIS5 and earlier, the default configuration would just
stream the contents of a .inc file as plain text to the requesting browser).

 

[Jim Rodgers]

=?Utf-8?B?SmltIFJvZGdlcnM=?= wrote on 14 aug 2007 in
microsoft.public.inetserver.asp.general:

On your server, Jim?

Do servers have IntelliSense features in any case?

Yes.

I develop ASP Classic files using VBScript and Microsoft
Visual Web Developer 2005 Express Edition ("VWD"). (It's very
much like Visual Studio 2005 -- except it has some additional
features and many, many flaws and bugs. But it's free, and I
can get it on all of the PCs in my lab.)

Anyway, VWD quits giving me IntelliSense for a specific function
or sub written in VBScript as soon as I put it in my "library" file,
which is an ASP file that I reference with an #Include directive.

Eventually, I will decide which of these functions and subs are
"core" utilities, which are somewhat more application-specific,
etc., before I compile them into VB6 DLLs for the betterment of
my life in general.

Meanwhile, I have to keep opening these [included] asp files to
remember the call lists, etc.

It's just now occuring to me -- partly due to the first responses
I got -- that maybe no one else is having this problem. If not,
it may be because no one else is using VWD 2005 Express. So,
is everyone using Visual Studio 2005 ???

There are numerous anomalies with VWD 2005 Express. For
example, IntelliSense will quit working for ADODB-declared
variables if I reference them too many times in the code. And
some objects won't do IntelliSense even when their enumerated
constants -ARE- working okay. It seems not to matter whether
I put the typelib declarations in the [parent] asp file or in the
global.asa file.

As I recall from a ten minute test at 4:00am one morning, the
Visual Studio 2005 design environment doesn't do IntelliSense
for CSS files.

So, does anyone know whether Intellisense should be working
on functions and subs once they have been moved into an
included asp file? Frankly, I don't see how they could unless
there is a declaration process at work -- but I guess that is what
I thought the design environment would do using the #Include
statement as a gianormous clue.

Is my question more clear?

Thank everybody.

 

[Jim Rodgers]

Of course we are.


No way. VWD 2005 Express rocks for classic ASP. It has great Intellisense
(when it works), the ability to validate against many DOCTYPEs, extremely
customizable auto-formatting, and many other strengths. And the price is
right. So is the disk requirement.

Great feedback. Thanks, I am encouraged. I will now followup
with some admittedly basic questions, the answers to which will
drastically improve my productivity!

============

I only get that problem inside the catch {} segments (I do ASP in JScript).
But I have seen it.

Thanks, so I am not going crazy (vis-a-vis this issue, anyway.)

==========

Like I said before, use the .asp extension. If it's used in too many places
to do this immediately, you can always make your .inc file a shell that
#includes one with the .asp extension.

Dave, I -DO- use the asp extension. Since, I assume, the file
contents are simply inserted into the parent file, I always have
the parent file and the included asp file in "HTML" mode at the
point of inclusion (i.e., at the #Include).

Are you saying I -SHOULD- be getting IntelliSense in the parent
file's VBScript for the subs and functions in the script portions of
the included asp file? This is what I need, but this is not what I
am getting.

In the included asp file, I typically start with <% and end with %>.
Again, this is because I assume the included file is simply inserted
by IIS. Should I, instead, be doing this another way? For example,
(and I never ever do this) should I use this --

...optional HTML elements
<script type="text/vbscript" runat="Server">
...VBScript statements...
</script>
...optional HTML elements

rather than this --

...optional HTML elements
<%
...VBScript statements...
%>
...optional HTML elements

in the included asp file?

The latter is what I do, and it works fine except for the
IntelliSense is 100% NONfunctional.

==============

Note that there is no way to create a new ASP script from
{File : New File]. ... Better still, you can put your own
customized ASP template there. Mine creates an empty
document built around our intranet template...

Wow. I sure have been doing this the hard way. I was
wondering about that, too. Especially after you said "VWD
2005 Express rocks for classic ASP."

SO, succintly, how do I create and install a custom template
of any sort? (I would like to have multiple templates for plain
HTML and for ASP files.)

============

Thanks, Dave for helping me out!

Jim Rodgers