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I'm using Dreamweaver, but it doesn't give me classes, functions, subs names when I am starting to write..

Are there any good alternatives?

casperOne
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user212098
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9 Answers9

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There isn't anything, since Classic ASP is a scripting language. Visual Studio has very rudimentary Intellisense but only for very basic features and I've found it doesn't help. Your best bet is to stick with Dreamweaver or just use a lightweight text editor with syntax highlighting. I recommend Notepad++

Wayne Molina
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  • I'd go along with that. I still use Dreamweaver, and occasionally VS2005 if I want to debug without Response.Write. I've tried Expression Web instead of DW, but old habits die hard. – Mike Brind Nov 16 '09 at 21:47
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    +1: basic text editor with auto-indent + syntax highlighting is all you need. Notepad++ == awesome. – Juliet Nov 17 '09 at 19:35
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    What a strange remark: an IDE is impossible for scripting languages? PHP is a scripting langauge, JavaScript is a scripting language. An IDE just puts everything together so it can be used an editor for a larger project. It doesn't need to be compiled. – Michiel van der Blonk Jan 07 '22 at 15:20
  • Notepad ++ is the best imho, easy, fast, supports the other langs etc. Good stuff that also gets updates. – easleyfixed Jun 13 '22 at 18:54
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In the seven years since this question has been asked, the IDE landscape has changed quite a bit. Reading Classic ASP code on Linux or any other platform is now possible with Visual Studio Code. Visual Studio Code is not Visual Studio, but a completely different editor based on Electron.

enter image description here

Yes, Microsoft is now shipping code written in NodeJS that runs naively on Linux!

dotancohen
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  • Which of the ASP extensions do you recommend / use for ASP Classic? (I've got a huge legacy project to maintain). They appear to have several: https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/search?term=asp&target=VSCode&category=All%20categories&sortBy=Relevance – random_user_name Mar 29 '17 at 13:57
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    Since I've got ASP / HTML mixed, I went with the "ASP HTML" extension. Awesome that they also offer VIM extensions! – random_user_name Mar 29 '17 at 14:10
  • As someone who is familiar with VS and VSC can you suggest any reason to choose VSC over VS for Classic ASP? VS is working for me but I could be convinced to move if I thought it worth while. – RyanfaeScotland Oct 31 '17 at 23:40
  • after install vscode, I use this extension https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=codecoke.asp-vbs if just pure vscode, seems cannot show classic asp syntax highlight – user1169587 Sep 20 '22 at 08:24
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As much as it pains me to say so, visual studio.net 2003 works quite well as an IDE with asp classic pages. Plus, if you use Whole Tomatoe's Visual Assist addin with it, they actually make classic asp fun to code in. Seriously. Totally tolerable AND debuggable. And if you toss in AspUnit for classic, you can easily run/maintain unit tests right alongside all your pages.

It works for classic Asp just like the big boys use for their .Net coding minus a few of the .net niceties, of course

With vs.net 2003 you can actually step though code one line at a time. you get breakpoints. You also get all locals variables shown while stepping and a working call stack which is nice if you have nested objects/procs/includes.

If you get the 'Visual Assist' addin-- and you use option explicit-- you also get a very workable version of Intellisense for all your vbscript objects and procedures. Pretty amazing to get Intellisense in a scripting language however they manage to pull that off.

And for testing your classic code AspUnit is perfectly functional "red/green" visual component.

It took me forever to finally get it all set up together and running proper but it was well worth it for a buttload of legacy code I inherited. Here's some links to all the stuff ref'ed above:

Visual Studio 2003 (not cheap, but stepping though script code-- priceless):

Whole Tomato Visual Assist:
- http://www.wholetomato.com/

AspUnit:
- http://aspunit.sourceforge.net/

dangowans
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user213186
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    I've used Visual Studio 2003 for working with legacy ASP code and it does do a pretty decent job. Much better than using Visual Interdev or a plain text editor. – Chris Nov 17 '09 at 19:47
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    Maybe this will help fellow developers still stuck with classic ASP debugging. I've been using Team Remote ASP Debugger ( http://www.aspdebugger.com ) for years to debug classic ASP. Saved me time and tears back in the day. Hope this helps. –  Sep 30 '12 at 19:31
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    Just downloaded Whole Tomato Visual Assist, and wow, it is amazing on Classic ASP! It has 'find references' etc! – mike nelson Jun 18 '13 at 22:42
  • Forget amazon. eBay is the place to go. With realistic prices. – user3305711 Mar 18 '18 at 11:56
  • Does VS2003 have working data tooltips for variables and 'goto defintion'? – Neutrino Jul 11 '18 at 15:02
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I heavily use Expression Web 4 (affordably priced) and recently the new free WebMatrix, both from Microsoft. Both come with intellisense for ASP classic and current languages like .Net/Razor.

Andy Davies
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I think that VS2005 is best the way for classic ASP. VS2005 supports debugging and code highlighting. And Whole Tomato's Visual Assist X is necessary add-in. It improves code-highlighting, intellisense for VS2005 and it'll accelerate your works. And you can see VA view like class outline view.

Alex Park
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Allaire's HomeSite 4.5 is what I have been using for about 20-years. I've tried NotePad++ and it works pretty good also, but is a bit more difficult to use. I also tried several versions of Visual "XXX" (Visual Studio, Visual Code, etc.) and all of them are monster programs, and load very slow, even on a very fast R610 server. Unfortunately, HomeSite is hard to find, as it is now owned by Adobe, and they have pretty much killed it. If you do find HomeSite, don't use the 5.0 or 5.5 versions, as they crash intermittently. HomeSite v4.5 is very stable.

PaulScott
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Use Sublime with SublimeCodeIntel package

Pal R
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Primal script 2012. Awsome for classic asp

Jigas
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I advise you to use Microsoft WebMatrix(syntax highlighting,internal web server source control like git,TFS,etc...). You can download it from my github link below.

https://github.com/talley/softwares/blob/main/WebMatrix_x86_en-US.msi

Talley Ouro
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