[JENKINS-17418] Enhancement to all Groovy Editing Interfaces to allow easy use of External Groovy Editors

In all cases the Jenkins Groovy editors are limited. No, I am not asking for more features for the editor itself, but it occurs to me that a fairly simple enhancement to all of these interfaces could make it very easy to hop in/out of your favorite Groovy Editor; Mine is Netbeans.

Like most editors, Netbeans monitors the disk to notice if the file has been changed outside the editor.

So if Script Console for instance would after 5 seconds of no typing, save the file to %JENKINS_HOME%/GroovyScript/ScriptConsole.groovy (or whatever) ... I could then stop typing and almost immediately have the current script in Netbeans (assuming Netbeans currently had that file open). Similarly then, once I finish all my auto-tab, intellisensed changes in Netbeans, I hit "save" and the Groovy Console could then pull back in my changes and I could run them. I could easily make changes in either editor as was most convenient and jump back and forth without all the usual copy/paste nonsense.

Script Console could even offer the previous script back on the start of a new session.

Groovy Postbuild has the additional issue that Postbuild is on a job by job basis, so it save area might be %JENKINS_HOME%/GroovyScript/%ITEM_ROOTDIR.groovy. (The name isn't important, but you get the idea).

Scriptler in a sense already has the files saved, but in an XML file with lots of other metadata that gets in the way. It might save a "clean" version of the groovy in %JENKINS_HOME%/GroovyScript/Scripter.groovy. It would not need to offer all the scripts this way . . . only the script currently being edited.

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Originally reported by fmerrow, imported from: Enhancement to all Groovy Editing Interfaces to allow easy use of External Groovy Editors

• assignee: vjuranek
  
• status: Open
  
• priority: Minor
  
• component(s): groovy-plugin, script-security-plugin, scriptler-plugin
  
• resolution: Unresolved
  
• votes: 0
  
• watchers: 4
  
• imported: 2025-12-09
  

In all cases the Jenkins Groovy editors are limited.  No, I am not asking for more features for the editor itself, but it occurs to me that a fairly simple enhancement to all of these interfaces could make it very easy to hop in/out of your favorite Groovy Editor; Mine is Netbeans.


Like most editors, Netbeans monitors the disk to notice if the file has been changed outside the editor.


So if Script Console for instance would after 5 seconds of no typing, save the file to %JENKINS_HOME%/GroovyScript/ScriptConsole.groovy (or whatever) ... I could then stop typing and almost immediately have the current script in Netbeans (assuming Netbeans currently had that file open).  Similarly then, once I finish all my auto-tab, intellisensed changes in Netbeans, I hit "save" and the Groovy Console could then pull back in my changes and I could run them.  I could easily make changes in either editor as was most convenient and jump back and forth without all the usual copy/paste nonsense.


Script Console could even offer the previous script back on the start of a new session.


Groovy Postbuild has the additional issue that Postbuild is on a job by job basis, so it save area might be %JENKINS_HOME%/GroovyScript/%ITEM_ROOTDIR.groovy.  (The name isn't important, but you get the idea).


Scriptler in a sense already has the files saved, but in an XML file with lots of other metadata that gets in the way.  It might save a "clean" version of the groovy in %JENKINS_HOME%/GroovyScript/Scripter.groovy.  It would not need to offer all the scripts this way . . . only the script currently being edited.

• environment: All Groovy Editors: Script Console, groovy-postbuild, scriptler (others?)