Looking for a good text editor for creating robot framework plain text files? I’ve been working on an extension for the fantstic brackets editor. To install, simply install the brackets editor, go to the extension manager, and search for “robot”.

Project page: https://github.com/boakley/brackets-robotframework Project wiki: https://github.com/boakley/brackets-robotframework/wiki

Features of the extension

The robot extension for brackets provides the following features:

  • syntax highlighting
  • code folding
  • smart handling of the tab key
  • code completion (if you have robotframework-hub installed)
  • in-editor keyword documentation (again, if you have robotframework-hub installed)

What is “smart handling of the tab key”?

I recommend using the pipe-delimited plain text format for test cases. I think this is the best combination of easy-to-read and easy-to-write. Unlike the tab- and space-separated formats, the separation of cells is more evident, which I think is important.

One downside of this format is that it’s tedious typing | | on most lines. Even worse is a continuation line which begins with | | ... | .

With this extension, pressing tab on a blank line automatically inserts pipes, spaces and continuation characters intelligently, removing some of the tedium with this format.

Want to start a new test case? A single tab on a blank line gives you the opening | (pipe-space) sequence.

Want to add a new statement to the current test case? Two tabs will get you the leading | | (pipe-space-pipe-space).

Want to add a new cell at the end of the current statement? If the cursor is at the last character and you press tab, it will insert ` | to start a new cell. Pressing tab immediately again will remove the trailing | `, start a new line, and then insert the same number of pipes and spaces as the line you were just editing.

The general idea is to try and get the tab key to “do the right thing”. I’m still refining exactly what that means, but what it has now seems to work pretty well.

Why another extension for another editor?

There are already extensions for several popular text editors. Why create another one?

If I’m honest, it’s partly due to my own hubris. I have some slightly radical ideas for where I want this extension to go, and these ideas might not mesh with existing projets. So, why not write my own?

Another factor is that brackets is based on the remarkable codemirror widget, and I had recently spent a lot of time working with codemirror at my previous job. I’m wanting to strengthen my own javascript skills (which are extremely weak), so this is a chance for me to grow, professionally.

Considering all that, it was easier for me to create a new extension rather than to fork an existing extension and become a contributor.

Integration with robotframework-hub

Another project I’ve been working on is robotframework-hub. The hub is a web app and api for serving up information about keywords.

If you are running the hub on your machine, the brackets extension can use the hub API to provide autocompilete and in-editor keyword documentation. Soon you’ll also be able to search your keywords right within the editor.

Summary

My goal with this extension is to give automation engineers a high quality editing tool, so they can focus more on the test case and less on the mechanics of editing the test.

Acknowledgements

A huge thank-you to my current employer, Echo Global Logistics who generously allows me to work on this project as part of my day job.