Is there any way to get intelligent object oriented autocompletion in scripts?

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#1

For example, if I define a class in modulescript A, and required it in script B, and used a .new() method that I defined to instantiate the object defined in A, is it possible to get autocompletion for this instantiated object?

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#2

The current autocomplete we have in the scripter editor might cover these objects to a certain extent, but other than that, there is no way to get customized autocomplete results.

Would be neat to have in the future though.

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#3

Intellisense is hardcoded C side.

Although with the new API dump in JSON feature, it might be a good idea to place a dump file in the install directory, let devs mess with the JSON, and have intellisense work off that file’s contents.

#4

It’s possible but not implemented now. Roblox’s Intellisense right now sees the return value of require([module]) as an unknown type instead of digging deep to infer what the module is actually returning. So it doesn’t know if your module is returning a table, a string, a number, etc.

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#5

It does, actually. If it’s a table, it shows autocomplete for the children.

image

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#6

Ah, I see. It wasn’t giving me that autocomplete because I always use WaitForChilds to get to the path of a module.

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#7

Same here, I always use WaitForChild just in case, but mainly because the module isn’t a child of the script. This is interesting to know, though. Could have it not use WaitForChild while scripting but before publishing change it to use WaitForChild.

#8

I also made a feature request that would solve this: Intellisense WaitForChild typing - #15 by MrHistory

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#9

Can we ditto that for all types of FindFirstChild?

#10

If you’re using the metatable-based OOP pattern, such as this:

local Vector1 = {}
Vector1.__index = Vector1

function Vector1.new(x)
    local self = {
        x = x,
    }
    -- N.B. autocomplete cannot peer into the return value of setmetatable(), use it in a side effecting fashion like this
    setmetatable(self, Vector1)
    return self
end

-- static function
function Vector1.fromPolarCoordinates(distance)
    return Vector1.new(distance)
end

function Vector1:dot(other)
    return self.x * other.x
end

return Vector1

Then autocomplete will currently be able to complete:

  • Vector1.new()
  • Vector1.fromPolarCoordinates
  • myVector1.x

But not:

  • myVector1:dot(otherVector1)
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