Autocompletion in ACE editor

41

votes

I've found simmilar question: Ace Editor autocomplete and multiple languages

But the responses were that autocompletion is not supported by ACE, and according to Google group for Ace Editor "It is on my wishlish for Ace and we definitively need it for Cloud9".

This post is one year old and as you can see, the cloud9 supports autocompletion now: https://c9.io/site/features/

So is autocompletion available in Ace Editor by default? I cannot find any information about it.

javascripthtmlautocompletesyntax-highlightingace-editor

Related question: How to add my own completer in ace editor – Klesun

56

votes

Autocomplete is now an official part of the API. Enabling it takes 3 lines of code:

ace.require("ace/ext/language_tools");
var editor = ace.edit("editor");
editor.setOptions({
    enableBasicAutocompletion: true
});

Depending on your setup with require-js, you may also need to include an additional javascript file in the html for your page:

<script src="ace/ext-language_tools.js"></script>

You can find a demo at https://github.com/ajaxorg/ace/blob/master/demo/autocompletion.html

And here's the wiki page I just wrote on the topic:

https://github.com/ajaxorg/ace/wiki/How-to-enable-Autocomplete-in-the-Ace-editor

17

votes

Since Autocomplete is now a part of the ACE api:

1) Include ace.js at the top of your html:

  <script type="text/javascript" src="js/ace.js"></script>

2) Also include your mode (language type):

  <script type="text/javascript" src="js/mode-yaml.js"></script>

3) Also include your theme:

  <script type="text/javascript" src="js/theme-monokai.js"></script>

4) Also include ex-language_tools.js:

  <script src="js/ext-language_tools.js"></script>

5) Add your div with id editor (this will become your IDE):

  <div id="editor"></div>

6) Include the following script (see my comments to understand them) :

  <script>
    var langTools = ace.require("ace/ext/language_tools");

Line below transforms your div with id="editor" into the editor

  var editor = ace.edit("editor");

Line below sets the color theme. Other themes available here...try them here

editor.setTheme("ace/theme/monokai");

Line below sets the mode based on programming language...other modes here:

editor.getSession().setMode("ace/mode/yaml");


    editor.setShowPrintMargin(false);

Lines below turns ON autocompletion in real-time.

editor.setOptions({
    enableBasicAutocompletion: true,
    enableSnippets: true,
    enableLiveAutocompletion: false
});

Thus, the whole thing could be broken down into the following:

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
  <title>IDE AUTOCOMPLETE</title>
  <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="//code.jquery.com/ui/1.11.2/themes/smoothness/jquery-ui.min.css">
  <script src="//code.jquery.com/jquery-1.11.2.min.js"></script>
  <script type="text/javascript" src="js/ace.js"></script>
  <script type="text/javascript" src="js/mode-yaml.js"></script>
  <script type="text/javascript" src="js/theme-monokai.js"></script>
  <script src="js/ext-language_tools.js"></script>
</head>
<body>
  <!-- EDITOR SECTION BELOW! -->
  <div id="editor"></div>
  <script>
    var langTools = ace.require("ace/ext/language_tools");
    var editor = ace.edit("editor");
    editor.setTheme("ace/theme/monokai");
    editor.getSession().setMode("ace/mode/yaml");
    editor.setShowPrintMargin(false);
    editor.setOptions({
        enableBasicAutocompletion: true,
        enableSnippets: true,
        enableLiveAutocompletion: false
    });
  </script>
  <!-- EDITOR SECTION ABOVE -->
</body>
</html>

10

votes

Autocompletion is still not available natively for Ace, however we have implemented a component doing that for the Codiad IDE which is based on Ace and fully open source. You can check the code on Github, it will surely help you to write your own.

3

votes

AjaxOrg has pushed a commit in their Cloud9 repository with the following message:

Code completion plug-in

I assume that this would be the answer to this question.

Here is the commit.

Also, I think that this is a good project that can help us.

For more information, we can follow the message from this issue opened in Cloud9 repository.

3

votes

Note, to implement custom completion logic, you can pass a completion provider object in enableBasicAutocompletion.

See jsfiddle

<!-- integrity removed for example sake -->
<script src="https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/ace/1.4.12/ace.js"></script>
<script src="https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/ace/1.4.12/ext-language_tools.js"></script>

<script>
const editor = ace.edit('some-ace-editor-holder-div-id');
editor.setOptions({
  enableBasicAutocompletion: [{
    getCompletions: (editor, session, pos, prefix, callback) => {
      // note, won't fire if caret is at a word that does not have these letters
      callback(null, [
        {value: 'hello', score: 1, meta: 'some comment'},
        {value: 'world', score: 2, meta: 'some other comment'},
      ]);
    },
  }],
  // to make popup appear automatically, without explicit _ctrl+space_
  enableLiveAutocompletion: true,
});
</script>

Info source

Autocompletion in ACE editor

8 Answers