Clarion Extension for Visual Studio Code
Professional Clarion language support for Visual Studio Code with intelligent code navigation, IntelliSense, and build integration.
🚀 Quick Links
✨ Key Features
🎨 Clarion & Template Language Support
Full language support for Clarion code, basic support for templates.
- Clarion files (.clw, .inc) - Complete syntax highlighting and IntelliSense
- Template files (.tpl, .tpw) - Syntax highlighting with 100+ template keywords
- Code folding for structures and template blocks
- Context-aware coloring for Clarion code
- Note: Template files have syntax highlighting only (no IntelliSense/navigation)
- Learn more about Code Editing →
💡 Signature Help & Documentation
Get instant parameter hints and documentation - works immediately, no solution needed!
- 310 built-in functions with parameter hints and descriptions
- Method overload support — overloads narrowed by argument type (e.g.
OPEN(Window) shows only WINDOW signatures)
- Hover documentation for all symbols — procedures, classes, variables, attributes, built-ins
- Context-aware hover —
HIDE, DISABLE, TYPE show attribute or statement usage depending on context
- Hover for PROP:/PROPPRINT: runtime properties — descriptions from Clarion 11.1 docs
- Hover for EVENT: equates — category, description, and usage example
- Signature help for class methods including inherited members
- Learn more about Signature Help →
🤖 IntelliSense — Smart Completions
Type SELF. or MyVar. for context-aware member suggestions. Type PROP:, PROPPRINT:, or EVENT: for documented equate completions.
- Resolves
SELF., PARENT., MyVar., or ClassName. to the correct class
- Full inheritance walk — shows methods and properties from parent classes
- Access control aware —
PRIVATE / PROTECTED / PUBLIC scoping enforced
- Each overload shown as a distinct entry with parameter signatures
- Chained expressions (
SELF.Order.) resolve intermediate types
- PROP:/PROPPRINT: completions with description and read-only badge
- EVENT: completions with category label (Field-Specific / Field-Independent / DDE)
- Learn more about Navigation →
✏️ Code Snippets
Write code faster with 50+ smart snippets - works immediately!
📂 Solution Management
Open any Clarion solution - just open the folder.
🧭 Smart Code Navigation
Jump to definitions, find implementations, and explore references — works in same file immediately, cross-file with solution.
- Press F12 to go to definition (same file: no solution needed!)
- Press Ctrl+F12 to go to implementation
- Press Shift+F12 for Find All References — scope-aware across all project files, overload-aware (only the matching overload's sites), routine-aware
- Press F2 to Rename Symbol — renames across the entire workspace in one step
- Reference-count CodeLens — an exact
N references count above every procedure, method, class, and routine; click to see them (large solutions briefly show a ~ estimate while the exact count computes)
- Routines are first-class symbols — hover, F12, Go-to-Implementation, references, and CodeLens all work on
ROUTINE labels and DO sites, including generated :: names like Menu::MENUBAR1
- Module-callout procedures — references from an implementation reach every module whose MAP includes the callout INC (the generated
MODULE('impl.clw') + INCLUDE pattern)
- Overload resolution by argument types — F12, Ctrl+F12, hover, and references pick the overload matching the call's arguments (typed variables, members, EQUATEs, implicit variables,
PRE:Field arguments)
- Document Highlight — scope-aware occurrence highlighting, including procedure call sites
- Workspace Symbol Search (
Ctrl+T) — search for any procedure, class, or label across all solution files
- Hover for documentation — declaration location, class/interface context, type info, resolved INCLUDE/MODULE/MEMBER file paths
- Chained navigation:
SELF.Order.RangeList.Init — hover, F12, Ctrl+F12, and references resolve through CLASS, QUEUE, and GROUP type chains
- SELF/PARENT properties: F12 on
SELF.List navigates to the class member declaration
- Typed variable members: F12/Ctrl+F12/hover on
obj.Method() where obj is any typed variable
- INTERFACE support: hover, F12, Ctrl+F12, and references for interface methods, IMPLEMENTS(), and 3-part
Class.Interface.Method implementations
- CLASS type names: F12 and Find All References work on type names in parameter and variable declarations
- Cross-file navigation requires solution
- Learn more about Navigation →
🔁 Refactoring & Quick Fixes
CodeRush-inspired refactors on Ctrl+. — plus quick fixes attached to diagnostics.
- Surround With… — wrap selected statements in
IF…END, LOOP/LOOP WHILE/LOOP UNTIL…END, or CASE…OF…END
- Negate Condition — flip the logical sense of an
IF / ELSIF / LOOP WHILE / LOOP UNTIL condition
- Flip IF/ELSE — negate the condition and swap the branches of a block-form
IF…ELSE…END
- Introduce EQUATE — extract a magic literal to a named
EQUATE, choosing which data section it lives in (routine / local / module / global — even cross-file into the PROGRAM)
- Create routine from
DO — an unresolved DO SomeRoutine offers to scaffold the ROUTINE skeleton in the right scope
- Add missing INCLUDE / project DefineConstants — quick fixes on the corresponding diagnostics
- Learn more about Code Editing →
🔧 Build Integration
Generate applications directly from VS Code.
- Right-click to build from Solution View
- Multiple build configurations (Debug/Release) — active config auto-detected from
.sln.cache
- Projects sorted by build order (dependency-first) in Solution View
- Live build output
- Learn more about Building →
🎯 Real-time Diagnostics
Catch errors as you type.
- Unterminated structures — including window sub-structures (
WINDOW, SHEET, TAB, OLE, MENU, etc.)
- Missing RETURN statements
- FILE validation (DRIVER, RECORD)
- Missing INCLUDE — warns when a variable's class type is defined in an
.inc not included in the file; code action inserts the INCLUDE automatically
- Missing DefineConstants — warns when a class's required
Link()/DLL() constants are absent from the .cwproj; code action adds them with a QuickPick for static vs DLL mode
- Discarded return values — a value-returning (non-
PROC) procedure or method called as a statement, including SELF./PARENT. call sites
- Literal passed by reference — a literal handed to a
*TYPE (or complex-type) parameter, which needs an addressable variable
- Undeclared variables (opt-out) — names that resolve to no declaration through the full scope model, cross-file aware
- Missing implementations / indistinguishable prototypes — MAP declarations without bodies, and overloads a call could never disambiguate
- Character-set validation that respects all Windows ANSI code pages (1250–1258) — national letters pass clean, genuine contamination (emoji, box-drawing) is flagged
- Code inside unconditional
OMIT blocks is excluded from diagnostics and reference counts (rename still updates it — other build configurations may compile it)
- Learn more about Diagnostics →
Built and measured against real-world solutions (40 projects / 3,000+ source files).
- Solution ready in ~2s, extension interactive in ~5s on large solutions
- All indexes (structure declarations, file relationships, reference counts) persist across sessions — warm starts re-scan only files that changed
- Background indexing is time-sliced and never blocks typing, hover, or navigation
- Project-file regeneration (all
.cwproj files touched) coalesces into a single refresh
- Opt-in performance tracing (
clarion.log.performance.enabled) produces a full diagnostic timeline for support
Productivity features to write code faster.
📦 Installation
Requirements
- Visual Studio Code (latest version)
- Clarion (for build features)
Quick Install
- Open VS Code
- Press
Ctrl+Shift+X
- Search for "Clarion Extensions"
- Click Install
Detailed installation instructions →
🎓 Learning Resources
For New Users
Feature Documentation
Reference
🆕 What's New
Latest: v1.0.1 — Maintenance: performance follow-ups & correctness fixes
1.0.1 is a stability release on top of the 1.0 overhaul — more startup and hover performance work verified on the real 40-project / 3,000-file solution, plus a batch of hover, completion, and diagnostic correctness fixes (many contributed by @geircodes).
- Performance follow-ups: startup validators no longer freeze the editor in multi-second blocks; F12 on a built-in returns instantly instead of a ~24s cold walk; the cross-file prewarm, reachable-include set, discarded-return-value memos, and MEMBER-parent docs all persist or cache so warm starts and repeat hovers stay cheap.
- Diagnostics:
.app global data is no longer falsely flagged "not declared" in generated MEMBER modules; a structure keyword used as a plain label no longer triggers a false "not terminated"; PRAGMA(...) is no longer mistyped as a procedure and corrupting completion scope.
- Completion & hover: member completion keeps working once you type past the dot;
?Ctrl field equates scope to the current procedure; hover footers render file:line locations as clickable links; several hover misclassifications (control-vs-variable, colon-prefixed dotted access, GROUP/QUEUE/RECORD(Type)) fixed.
- Highlighting: custom prefix colours no longer bleed through commented-out lines.
See the full changelog for the complete list →
The 1.0 release was the largest update yet — a ground-up performance overhaul verified on real 40-project / 3,000-file solutions: the IDE is usable seconds after opening a large solution, with all indexes persisted across sessions and no event-loop freezes. It also brought exact reference counts with routine lenses, overload-aware navigation everywhere (FAR, F12, Ctrl+F12, hover, signature help), new refactors (Surround With, Negate Condition, Flip IF/ELSE, Introduce EQUATE, Create routine from DO), new diagnostics, and an upgrade to LSP 8.x.
See full changelog →
💬 Support & Feedback
📄 License
MIT License
🙏 Acknowledgments
Special thanks to:
- fushnisoft - Original Clarion syntax highlighting
- The Clarion community for feedback and testing
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