WebStorm 2021.3 EAP #5: Support for Remote Development
WebStorm 2021.3 EAP build #5 is now available! To catch up on all the new features, check out our previous EAP blog posts.
If you’re not familiar with our Early Access Program, check out this blog post where we explain what the EAP is and why you should take part in it. TL;DR: aside from helping steer development in the direction you want it to go, you could also get a free WebStorm license.
The Toolbox App is the easiest way to get the EAP builds and keep both your stable and EAP versions up to date. You can also manually download the EAP builds from our website.
Important! WebStorm EAP builds are not fully tested and might be unstable.
Below you can find the most notable improvements available in WebStorm 2021.3 EAP #5. Please try them out and share your feedback with us.
- Remote development
- Using Node.js in Docker for Mocha, Jest, and npm
- Faster indexing of JavaScript files
- New Changes tool window
- New Push All up to Here action
Remote development
Let’s start with the biggest update in this build – WebStorm now has the long-awaited support for remote development workflows! You can connect to a remote machine with an IDE backend running and work on a project located there as if it were located on your local machine. We hope this helps you stay more productive and flexible, in addition to allowing you to work securely from anywhere.
Support for remote development workflows is provided through JetBrains Gateway, our new application that serves as an entry point for all your remote backends. It doesn’t require you to have an IDE installed on your local machine. You can use these links to download JetBrains Gateway: dmg | exe | tar.gz. Here’s what you’ll see once you do.
For more information on how to get started, please refer to the documentation. WebStorm-specific documentation is not yet available. However, the steps should be the same for all IntelliJ-based IDEs.
Please note that this is an early access version of the remote development functionality and we’re still actively working to improve it. Please give the new functionality a try and let us know what you think. You can share your feedback or report any bugs here.
Using Node.js in Docker for Mocha, Jest, and npm
In the first EAP build, we announced Node.js remote interpreter support for ESLint. Since then, we’ve extended this support to Mocha, Jest, and npm scripts. Please give it a try and share your feedback with us so we can improve it further. You can find instructions for each of the supported technologies below:
Faster indexing of JavaScript files
We understand that WebStorm’s performance may not be optimal at times, so we’re constantly working to improve it. Quite often, the changes related to performance are subtle, and you may not notice them unless you use a timer or a CPU profiler. In this release, we’ve managed to achieve more noticeable results, decreasing the indexing times for JavaScript files by 20%.
We hope this improvement will help you to get working faster when you open a new project or do a massive Git update. Please note that the change will be less noticeable if your project mainly consists of TypeScript or other types of files.
New Changes tool window
Note: The behavior of this feature has changed in the latest builds. To open the new tool window, go to the Log tab of your version control system, right-click on a revision, and pick Compare with local from the context menu.
In WebStorm, we have the Annotate with Git Blame action, which helps you figure out who introduced which changes. To open the annotated view, you can right-click the gutter on the left side of the editor and choose Annotate with Git Blame.
Previously, when you clicked on a line with a date and the name of a person who made the changes, the IDE would open a separate dialog with a list of the files affected by the revision. Now WebStorm will show you this list in a new Changes tool window.
New Push All up to Here action
Sometimes, you may have several commits that are ready to be shipped while others are still works in progress. In such cases, you may want to push only the ones you are sure about. In this release, we will let you push commits up to the one you have selected in the Log tab of the Git tool window. To do so, pick the necessary commit, right-click on it to open the context menu, and select a new Push All up to Here action.
That’s it for the biggest highlights. For the full list of the latest improvements available in WebStorm 2021.3 EAP #5, check out the release notes.
The WebStorm team
Subscribe to WebStorm Blog updates
