Looking forward to switching my text-processing and coding workflows to Nova! I’ll need to make some text processing “macros” (mostly Replace Alls and simple if/then logic). Extensions are the way, it seems. I have a background in JS among other languages.
I’ve started a new Editor Extension and it’s an empty window… where do I learn what to do with that window? Thanks in advance!
(Do I locate the new extension in Finder, Show Package Contents, and start editing the files it contains?)
Also, I am searching the API Reference… but I’m not finding how to get the selected text and modify it. (If I can can just do that, my needs will soon be met!)
For posterity: I don’t know if it’s an ugly hack or exactly the right process… but Show Package Contents and editing the .js and .json within does indeed work.
Then to test your work-in-progress, you must repeatedly Activate Project as Extension, unless there’s some better workflow I haven’t found yet.
I have now made the 10 features missing from Nova that I needed! (Only a couple might be useful enough to share though.)
And FWIW here’s a code snippet for modifying the current selection (Replace All in this example):
var range = editor.selectedRange;
var txt = editor.selectedText;
txt = txt.replaceAll("FROM", "TO"); //Replace All example
editor.edit(function(e) {
e.replace(range, txt);
});
Hey! After creating an extension with the developer menu you can open that package (folder) in Nova itself and start hacking away. You can open the folder above too if you have build tools for your JavaScript.
If you “Activate as Extension” Nova will run your extension and if any files inside your .novaextension change it will restart the extension.
I have this little non-published extension for my custom text-based commands, if that’s interesting for reference, and it has some docs about how I setup and develop the extension. GitHub - robb-j/nova-doofer: Extra text utilities for Nova.