JavaScript editor for Mac using Parallels

[ODuinn]

I am most likely not the first to discover this, but nonetheless it was a very happy discovery.

I work on a Mac but run Windows too, under Parallels. With my routine it is simply best to work on my Acrobat forms on the Mac, with the exception of course when it comes to editing my scripts. Those familiar know that if you use an external Mac text editor with Acrobat, you must quit the text editor in order to return to and use your form.

I discovered that if I set the Acrobat JavaScript preferences on my Mac to use a Windows text editor (in my case, I am using notepad++), I lose that very annoying problem of having to quit the text editor to use my forms in editing mode. When I edit a script, whether the script is attached to a field, a Document JavaScript or All JavaScripts, notepad++ opens in Parallels, and when I close the script in notepad++,  leaving notepad++ open, I can then return to and continue working on my form. It appears to work as well as editing a form's script in Windows.

[JR Boulay · Accepted solution]

Hi.

Since using an external JavaScript/text editor always crash Acrobat Pro (since version 9 at least) on Mac OS, I became accustomed to copy-paste-copy-paste-copy-paste… between Acrobat and TextWrangler.

[ODuinn]

Subsequent to posting my "discovery" about using a windows text editor with Acrobat on a Mac on which Parallels is installed, although this does seem to work for a time, it doesn't take long before it gets fouled up and crashes. Consequently, "copy-paste-copy-paste-copy-paste… between Acrobat and TextWrangler" remains the best alternative. One would think that Adobe would get around to fixing this annoying deficiency.

[Karl Heinz Kremer]

You may want to report a bug here: Feature Request/Bug Report Form

What I do is copy&paste to and from TextMate. I do have TextMate configured as my JavaScript editor, but turned off, so when I am forced to use an external editor (JavaScript code is too large to fit into the built-in editor), I just bring up Acrobat's properties, go to the JavaScript category and turn my external editor on. Once I am done with that particular file, I turn it off again.

[JR Boulay]

You may want to report a bug

I reported it for the first time during the Acrobat 8 prerelease…

[brettafreeman]

I'm using Acrobat Pro DC on the Mac (Sierra) and use an external editor all the time.

The trick to make it a pleasant experience is to save and *quit* the editor EVERY time. If you leave the editor running, the next time you send a script over from Acrobat, it will  not always load a fresh version and things quickly get messy.

I've used Textmate and SublimeText without issue. I'm using Sublime right now because it reopens quicker than anything else I've found which is useful when I have to quit each time I'm done and return to Acrobat.

[JR Boulay]

Breaking news: Text Wrangler is dead

==> http://www.barebones.com/products/textwrangler/download.html