ErlyBird 0.15.0 Released - An Erlang IDE based on NetBeans

Updated(Sep 23): Known issues:

  • Formmater: String literal that is broken to multiple lines will be reformatted, this should be fixed. (Done in trunk)
  • 'Run project' does not work yet.
  • When more than one projects are opened concurrently, 'Go to declaration' for remote function may not work. You can close other projects when encountered.

I'm pleased to announce ErlyBird 0.15.0, an Erlang IDE based on NetBeans. This is a major features release. This release will only provide all-in-one IDE package, which is in size of 17.6M.

CHANGELOG:

  • Pretty formatter (Ctrl+Shift+F).
  • Variables and functions occurrences mark.
  • Better brace matching highlighting, such as for 'try-catch-end', 'if-end' etc.
  • "-import" syntax now works in all cases, that means RabbitMQ's code will be parsed correctly.
  • Various bugs fixes.

As NetBeans 6.0 beta1 was just released, I hope ErlyBird has got more stable also.

Java JRE 5.0+ is required.

To download, please go to: http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=192439

To install:

  1. Unzip erlybird-bin-0.15.0-ide.zip to somewhere.
  2. Make sure 'erl.exe' or 'erl' is under your environment path
  3. For Windows user, execute 'bin/erlybird.exe'. For *nix user, 'bin/erlybird'.
  4. Check/set your OTP path. From [Tools]->[Options], click on 'Erlang', then 'Erlang Installation' tab, fill in the full path of your 'erl.exe' or 'erl' file. For instance: "C:/erl/bin/erl.exe"
  5. The default -Xmx option for jvm is set to 256M, ErlyBird now works good with less memory, such as -Xmx128M. If you want to increase/decrease it, please open the config file that is located at etc/erlybird.conf, set -J-Xmx of 'default_options'.

When run ErlyBird first time, the OTP libs will be indexed. The indexing time varies from 10 to 30 minutes deponding on your computer.

Notice: If you have previous version of ErlyBird 0.12.0+ installed, you can keep your old cache files, otherwise, please delete the old cache files which are located at:

  • *nix: "${HOME}/.erlybird/dev"
  • mac os x: "${HOME}/Library/Application Support/erlybird/dev"
  • windows: "C:\Documents and Settings\yourusername\.erlybird\dev" or some where

The status of ErlyBird is still Alpha, feedbacks and bug reports are welcome.

Comments

1. kerwin -- 2007-09-20 09:00

I created a blank app and when I run the application it fails to compile. Its says

Command: /opt/erlybird/bin/erlybird -i /home/kerwin/NetBeansProjects/ErlangApplication2/include -i /home/kerwin/NetBeansProjects/ErlangApplication2/include -noshell -s make all -s init stop Unknown option -i

2. Caoyuan Deng -- 2007-09-20 09:00

Hi kerwin,

Running application is still not supported in ErlyBird. To add this feature, I need more work to get a better project management tool integrated. The candicator is Erlware:  http://code.google.com/p/erlware/

3. Geertjan -- 2007-09-20 09:00

Congratulations with your progress!

4. Caoyuan Deng -- 2007-09-21 09:00

Thanks, Greertjan.

5. Daniel Mendes -- 2007-09-21 09:00

Hi Caoyuan,

The project is really shaping up, it is very nice to see an Erlang editor in NB.

About the processing, most people will have the default OTP configuration. Is there a way, that a preprocessed/digested file could be used? Is it possible to attach more content as we download more stuff into our library?

6. Caoyuan Deng -- 2007-09-23 09:00

Hi Daniel,

Currently, ErlyBird will add dirs that are located by querying 'erl noshell -s code root_dir -s init stop' as libs, and, when this lib directory is updated (add/remove something), ErlyBird will re-index it.

In the near future, I'll add supporting for adding custom directors as lib directory, and managing libs per project.

7. kerwin -- 2007-09-23 09:00

Thanks Deng!

But can I run the code from the command line?

Im using Ubuntu 6 and I have difficulty compiling the source dist from the erlang.org and I really want to try this language immediately without going through all the hassles of installation!

Can you help me?

8. Caoyuan Deng -- 2007-09-23 09:00

kerwin,

You can run your app via Erlang console.

1. Build your application by [Build]->[Build Main Project] 2. Open an Erlang console in ErlyBird, [Window]->[Interactive Erlang Shell]. 3. Run your app in Erlang Shell:

code:add_patha("ebin"). main:start(Args).

9. kerwin -- 2007-09-23 09:00

hi Deng,

I tried to open an Erlang console but it closes immediately after opening.

It says "Unknow option -sname".

10. Caoyuan Deng -- 2007-09-24 09:00

Hi kerwin,

What's your os, Windows?, did you set Erlang Installation path?

11. kerwin -- 2007-09-24 09:00

Hi Deng,

My OS is Ubuntu linux.

In your installation instructions above:

<b>"Make sure 'erl.exe' or 'erl' is under your environment path"</b>, since Im using linux I did not understand how to set erl in the environment path. Is erl the erlybird executable or is it another file. Ive been looking under the installation folder and I haven't found a file of that name.

12. Caoyuan Deng -- 2007-09-25 09:00

kerwin,

Please drop me an email, so we can go on discussing. I can be reached at: dcaoyuan <at> gmail <dot> com

13. Caoyuan Deng -- 2007-09-29 09:00

kerwin,

Seems you point the Erlang OTP installation path to erlybird, you should have Erlang OTP installed first, which can be download from erlang.org, or, can get as rpm package for linux somewhere.

14. kerwin -- 2007-09-30 09:00

<p>Thanks a lot Deng! I thought the OTP is packaged along with the IDE. Anyway I was able to compile and install the source (which is the only available dist for linux) using the following link <a href=" http://blog.ciarang.com/index.php/archives/93"> Compiling Erlang in Ubuntu</a>