To get JavaScript IntelliSense working in VS 2008 SP1, you need to tell IntelliSense the location of the libraries that you're using. You do that by adding a special comment at the top of the .js file. It's three slashes followed by the reference in an XML element syntax.
For example, my JScript.js file has a dependency on the jQuery library. So, here's what I add to the top of JScript.js:
/// <reference path="jquery-1.2.6.js" />
IntelliSense then parses the referenced file. Just start typing and you start seeing the jQuery members:
I'm not sure whether it's required to put the reference pointer at the very top of the page but my IntelliSense failed to work when I included comments *before* the reference. The following didn't work:
/*--------------------------------------------------------------------
Don't do this!!!!!!!!!!!!
--------------------------------------------------------------------*/
/// <reference path="jquery-1.2.6.js" />
If the developer of a library wants to provide even more info, IntelliSense will pick that up too. Just use the three-slash comments with the following syntax:
trim: function(text)
{
/// <summary>Removes whitespace from the beginning and end</summary>
/// <param name="text">The string to be trimmed</param>
/// <returns>string</returns>
return (text || "").replace(/^\s+|\s+$/g, "");
},
Here's how the summary appears in the IDE for the trim() function above:
With IntelliSense, JavaScript debugging, and enhanced JavaScript formatting, I may start to hate JavaScript just a little less! <grin>
Ken