Groovy code editor suggestions

Question

I'm trying to learn Grails. I'm using SpringSource toole suite. I expected to find code-completion, syntax highlighting and more things like that in the IDE. Nothing like that! Any advice?

Answer 1

Did you enable the Groovy and Grails support? It's not there by default but it's trivial to configure. See http://grails.org/STS+Integration/

Answer 2

IntelliJ from JetBrains has all that and more. It's not free, but the price is worth it.

Answer 3

If you're on a Mac, you can use TextMate and install Groovy/Grails bundle. You will have code snippets, that is some kind of completion.

If you're on Windows/Linux/Mac you can use Redcar, that was made for(and in) Ruby but has Groovy/Grails support. It also have code snippets.

I strongly recommend for learning that you don't use object inspection and dynamical code completion in a dynamic language in order to avoid IDE addiction and dependency.

I personally prefer unobtrusive code editor, that let we deal with textcode directly without clutter, allowing us to make mistakes early and understand better the language (and the framework). I use it even in production work.

Answer 4

I second IntelliJ, but the free edition could suffice, it has groovy support, though Grails support is in the paid version only.

Answer 5

I'm using IntelliJ Community Edition. As I see, the difference between free editors is not much. In face, I use IntelliJ Community just because of its simple interface. It also supports syntax highlight/code completion for groovy/java, & somehandy functions like search/go to...

In short, if you want full support, the IntelliJ Premium is great, but you must pay for it. For the free rest, you can even choose any editors you want.

Answer 6

i use IntelliJ Ultimate and it's the best way to go but if you want a free solution then Netbean 6.5 an up supports groovy/grails code highlight / Code completion natively and is free.