Illuminated Cloud 2 Released

Post date: Dec 14, 2017 2:49:30 AM

I am incredibly excited to announce the release of Illuminated Cloud 2! In addition to all of the features of Illuminated Cloud 1, the initial release of Illuminated Cloud 2 includes:

  • WebStorm support

      • In addition to JetBrains IntelliJ IDEA, Illuminated Cloud now fully supports JetBrains WebStorm and extends its best-in-class HTML/JavaScript/CSS editors for Lightning and Visualforce development. WebStorm provides a lower-cost alternative to IntelliJ IDEA Ultimate Edition for full Salesforce Web development.

  • Refactoring

      • Rename type/trigger/method/field/variable

      • Introduce variable

      • Inline expression

      • Safe delete

      • Copy class/trigger

      • Copy Lightning bundle

      • Rename/copy/move metadata files including supporting meta.xml files

  • Code inspections and intentions

      • Unresolvable reference inspection

      • Unused declaration inspection with remove unused declaration intention

      • Illegal assignment inspection with add cast operator intention

      • Control flow statement without braces inspection with add braces intention

      • Incomplete concrete class declaration inspection with implement methods and make abstract intentions

      • Usage/declaration case mismatch inspection with change to declaration case intention

      • Keyword case mismatch inspection with change to preferred case intention

  • Code generation

      • Implement methods from interface(s)

      • Override methods from base class(es)

  • Lightning enhancements

      • Navigate to JavaScript and Apex controller methods from Lightning JavaScript references

  • Licensing enhancements

      • Distinct client IDs for each activation

      • Convenient access to the active license key

      • Integrated trial extensions

      • Offline trial initiation

      • Offline trial extension

Note that in order to support WebStorm, some actions and features have moved from their original locations in Illuminated Cloud 1:

    • The Illuminated Cloud sub-menu is now located under Tools instead of Build.

    • Actions for showing, hiding, and generating reports for Apex code coverage have been added to the Illuminated Cloud sub-menu.

    • Deployment errors are now reported in the Illuminated Cloud tool window instead of the Problems tool window.

    • Apex-specific code folding options have been added for folding of inner classes, property accessors, and generic parameters.

As with Illuminated Cloud 1, the feature set will continue to expand throughout subsequent releases. I've shared my thoughts on near-term enhancements, but as always I welcome end user feedback about enhancements I haven't considered and relative prioritization on those that are already listed.

Caveat: When you implement complex behaviors such as refactoring and real-time static code analysis for a language with no published grammar or behavioral specification, bugs are inevitable. The good news is that I've tested these features against hundreds of thousands of lines of Apex code and fixed the bugs uncovered by those projects. This has led to much more accurate and reliable reference injection and dynamic type inference implementations which are critical for features like refactoring and static code analysis. The reality, though, is that there is going to be other source code that reveals bugs that I simply haven't yet encountered. My guess is that these will take the form of false positives and negatives reported by Illuminated Cloud 2's code inspections or unexpected refactoring results. I will be collating bug reports for these types of issues and using that information to minimize and hopefully eliminate such issues. If you do run into such a problem, the best way to help me resolve it is to provide a standalone reproduction of the problem via the public issue tracker.

Note that the Web site has also been refreshed completely with detailed information about out-of-the-box live templates, code inspections and intentions, metadata management, and debug log configuration for key IDE features. The FAQ has been updated with the truly most frequently asked questions and an enhanced keymap description that includes shortcut keys for all new Illuminated Cloud 2 features and my recommendations for shortcut keys to master immediately. I've also provided an outline for a series of short-duration HOWTO-style videos that I plan to create in the near future, and I welcome feedback on which would be most valuable as well as any others that you'd like to see.

Evaluation, Purchasing, and Upgrade

As always, Illuminated Cloud 2 includes a free 30-day trial for all users. It is safe to have Illuminated Cloud 1 and 2 installed simultaneously, but only one version may be enabled at a time. Before installing Illuminated Cloud 2, it is highly recommended that you first update Illuminated Cloud 1 to at least version 1.8.1.3 or you may encounter errors at IDE startup. If this occurs, just disable the Illuminated Cloud 1 plugin and enable the Illuminated Cloud 2 plugin. Note that due to changes required to support refactoring and code inspections/intentions, offline symbol tables are now versioned. Illuminated Cloud 2 will prompt you to regenerate your a project's offline symbol table once when it the project is first opened after installing Illuminated Cloud 2.

Illuminated Cloud 2 pricing, purchasing, and upgrade details are available on the Purchase page and in the Rose Silver Software Store. All existing licensed Illuminated Cloud 1 users are eligible for a discount when upgrading to Illuminated Cloud 2 with the amount based on recency of purchase and the type of license being purchased.

Illuminated Cloud 1 will be available for purchase until December 31, 2017 after which only Illuminated Cloud 2 will be available. Illuminated Cloud 1 licenses are perpetual and will continue to be supported for critical and blocker-level reported issues prioritized based on business impact. Additionally Illuminated Cloud 1 will receive updates for Salesforce seasonal releases through Winter '19 inclusive. No major new features will be added to Illuminated Cloud 1.

In Closing...

I sincerely hope that you find Illuminated Cloud 2 as useful and enjoyable in your day-to-day work as I have over the past several months. If you have questions, find issues, or just want to share feedback, don't hesitate to let me know via email, the public issue tracker, or the public discussion groups.

Best regards,

Scott Wells