The W-Language ( PDF: W-Language (v19) English ) is the common computer language for all of PC Soft’s developer tools!
You have to learn the W-Language only once! And that’s very easy because the W-Language is very similar to most BASIC languages (VB, VB.NET, FreeBASIC etc.) and offers very similar structures. You can program “Procedural” or “Object Oriented” – as you like and as you’re accustomed to.
The Code Editor assists you with auto-completion in order to assist you at finding the desired function out of the hundreds of available functions – fast. Syntax highlighting is standard – it’s up to you to set colors, fonts and font sizes for the Code Editor!
The Code Editor offers dozens of functions you always wanted to see in your other code editors but never got!
Structures like IF – ELSE -END, SWITCH-Case-END, WHILE-END etc. will be automatically completed and – as a skeleton – inserted into your code.
Collapsed Code. Such structures like WHILE – END etc. are known to the Code Editor and show a [-] sign at the first line. The whole command structure can be collapsed by a click and shown by another one. Readability of the code is much enhanced by this function!
The Code Editor is the common tool of WINDEV, WEBDEV and WINDEV Mobile for entering code into windows, controls, pages, local and global procedures, classes and methods, reports …
There’s a powerful Search and Search & Replace function which searches the shown code, the code of the whole object in edit (window, page, report ..), the whole project and the project with all of its ‘configurations’ (variants to the main project).
Hundreds of Code Wizards support you at defining the parameters of functions and assist as a reminder of possible syntax variants.
Tooltips display the necessary composition of a function and help you with faster programming.
Hitting the F1-key with the cursor on any function or language constant will bring up the related page of the W-Language documentation!
Code History can be enabled for the Code Editor and will store all changes to the original code and will not only note the user’s name who did the changes but also date & time. This is an important factor if several programmers are working on the same project!
The SCM (Source Code Manager) of WINDEV, WEBDEV and WINDEV Mobile manages the collaboration of hundreds of programmers on the same project, part of the SCM is the handling of the source code entered by the Code Editors of the programmers.
Automatic Code and Element Name Checks. Input code is immediately checked when input and errors are shown whenever there’s a syntax error. So, coding problems will be detected immediately at coding time and not much later at compile time! When inputting code, the names of the elements are automaticalle checked. There’s no way to inadvertantly input undeclared variables, wrong datafile item names, control names, window names – the editor will notify you instantly of a typo or omission.
Automatic Indent. Code for structures like IF..THEN – ELSE – END, WHILE – END etc. will be indented automatically in order to enhance readability of the code.
Code Bricks. The Code Editor allows for input and storing of code bricks.
Conditional Target Code. For multi-platform code you can define code sections to be used by a certain platform only. <COMPILE IF configuration name > lets you choose between up to 8 different configurations within any object.
Navigation within the code. When positioning the cursor on the name of a procedure or another element of code then just hit the F2-key in order to see the code of the procedure. With Ctrl-F2 you can walk back to the original part of the code you were reading before.
Display Options. On request, the Code Editor displays the empty processes, the processes of the overloaded templates and the line numbers.
Multilingual projects. The Code Editor lets you input text messages in all of the project’s langages. Btw, all of the controls, windows, pages, reports can and will be multilingual in case you defined a project to be made for more than one language. The programs WDINT and WDMSG are a further help for multilingual projects! WDINT helps you to translate system messages into the project’s languages and WDMSG extracts all of the multilingual parts (= texts) of the project and enables you to hand the translation job over to a professional translation bureau. They will not see any code or graphic elements – only the texts to translate. Translation is very economical then because a translation takes place only once though it could appear many times.
Breakpoints for debugging. The Code Editor takes care of the breakpoints where the programm will enter the debugger during the execution of the project. The debugger is a very useful part of PC Soft’s devlopment tools.
Cross-reference in the Editor. The cross-reference shows you where in the code you’ve used a variable name or any other element.
Specific processes. The Code Editor will offer a number of specific processes when editing code for windows, pages, reports, controls etc. These processes are partly “events” of the windows world like “mouse over” or “click button”, partly they offer a code section for “initialization” of a window or control, a section for “initialization completed”, window is closed, window is resized .. and so on. You just have to fill in the code you desire to be executed there.
Automatic procedures. The programming of timers, threads and delayed procedures is now automatically managed by the environment.
Reverse Code Modeling. A wizard for reverse code modeling show you which parts of the code are called from other parts. A model can be shown with increased / decreased details.
Code statistics. These statistics can be displayed for the object currently edited in the Code Editor (window, report, …) or for the project currently edited in the code editor.
A Programming Charter. If you want, you can use PC Soft’s standard programming charter or edit your own one. Example of a programming charter: all integers start with “i”, all reals with “r” and so on … so you will be able to read the program while maintaining it. iCount and rSum tell you immediately the type and usage of the variable.
Code Translation. It is possible to write code in French or English. The function names are either in French or in English. With a click, it is possible to “tranlate” a French W-Language project from French into English or vice versa respectively.