WebStorm 11 Roadmap Discussion
Since WebStorm 10 came out (is it 10 already? boy, we’re moving fast with version numbers!), we’ve spent the last 2 months working on fixes and various minor improvements. Last week the team got together to discuss our plans for WebStorm 11, and we’d like to share them with you. We’d be happy to know what you think, too.
Please note it’s a preliminary plan, so we can’t guarantee that all of the features listed below will be ready for WebStorm 11.
So here are the highlights:
Yeoman integration
Yes, it’s something we’ve been thinking about for a while. We’d like to integrate Yeoman with the IDE Welcome screen to make it easier to create new projects.
Take npm integration to the next level
npm integration has been available in WebStorm for some time already—you can install and manage modules from the IDE. However, we understand that there’s a lot of room for improvement. We’d like to add support for npm scripts similar to what we now have for Gulp and Grunt. The next thing is to support various scenarios of managing project Node.js dependencies like adding new, updating and removing modules—so it all works seamlessly and you don’t have to use the command line.
Webpack support
Webpack has been seeing a lot of adoption in the community, and we even have some Webpack enthusiasts on the JetBrains YouTrack team. We’d like to support the Webpack-specific require statements and debug.
Deeper integration with build tools
We would like to build plugins for Webpack and Gulp that would allow you to enjoy the benefits of the build tool’s watch mode without interference from the IDE autosave feature. We want to make sure that build process is triggered when you really want it to (with a shortcut), but doesn’t get triggered by file system events, while WebStorm takes care of your files being saved.
Angular support
As we start working on Angular 2 support, we hope to be able to finish the core features by the release of v11. At the same time we’re planning to continue improving Angular 1.x support in WebStorm.
We’re also going to have lots of JavaScript, TypeScript and Node.js support improvements, as well as new features from the core IntelliJ Platform, and much more. Lot’s of improvements are planned for the Dart support (thanks to the Dart team). Of course, performance is still our top priority, so if you feel that the IDE is laggy, please take some CPU snapshots and send them our way. We would really appreciate that.
The next release will traditionally happen somewhere around October, with the Early Access Program opening up in midsummer. Don’t miss it—subscribe to the EAP channel by going to IDE Preferences | Appearance & Behavior | System Settings | Updates.
That’s the plan, anyway. Do give us your feedback here and in our issue tracker!
Stay tuned!
Develop with pleasure!
– JetBrains WebStorm Team
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