Moving from Extendscript Toolkit to VS Code for FM development?

[Alan Houser]

One of the major limitations I've encountered in running FrameMaker 2020 on Windows 11/ARM is that the Extendscript Toolkit will not run. This is apparently a permanent issue, as the ESTK won't be updated for 64-bit architectures.

I see that the "correct" path forward is to move to the Extendscript Debugger under VS Code. Having not used Visual Studio in a decade, I have no idea how to proceed.

So ... instead of possibly clearing a morning to investigate, I thought I'd put up a flare here to find out how to deploy VS Code for FM Extendscript development. 🙂

TIA!

-Alan

[frameexpert]

I had a hard time getting it working, so I just use Notepad++ and add the script I am developing to the Script Catalog. Edit in Notepad++, save the script, switch to FrameMaker, and click Run.

[Russ Ward]

Now that is a vote of confidence.

[Alan Houser]

Thanks, Rick! I'm impressed that you're using a text editor, which I've had to do for my recent work. But ... debugging with messages and alerts is a giant step backwards. I feel like I'm programming in high school. I need a "real" debugger!

[K.Daube]

Since about beginning of this year I primarily use VSC-ESD. See attached pdf.

As with ESTK neither Notify nor menus can be debugged. Hence I have a Debug-menu which bypasses the ordinary menu set-up does not set up the notifications. These things must be tested in 'live mode'...

[Fightergator]

Thanks to everyone for your comments regarding VSC-ESD installation.  Been having issues with the 32-bit ESTK and decided to try the VSC-ESD.  I followed the link to the ExtendScript Debugger Extension for VS Code and clicked on "Install."  Got a message said I needed to install Visual Studio and was provided a link to the VS download page.  I downloaded Visual Studio and launched it through the ExtendScript Debugger.  It took a couple of minutes to sort out how to configure the console window, etc.  My thanks to K. Daube for his tip on using F5 to select the ExtendScript toolkit debugger and then run it using a FrameMaker document (see pgs 267-268 of pdf).  Everything worked fine...caught a couple of missing colons at the end of statements and told me I didn't need the statement "#target framemaker" in my scripts any longer!  Scripts seem to execute faster as well.