Update: 2025 Beta (AI introduction, free for everybody)

[Karlis]

Today we have released WeBuilder 2025 Beta. Beta will be only available for the WeBuilder; Rapid CSS, HTMLPad or Rapid PHP will come as production releases only. The final release date and upgrade availability will depend on the amount of problems detected in beta. We are also adding new features, so the final version may have more features, but we wanted to release something ASAP, because it has been too long since anything new was released.

What is Beta? Should I install it?
Beta is an experimental test version of an unfinished future release of the software. It may contain more bugs and issues than regular releases, at the same time it contains features from the future releases. While we use our own Betas in production environment and think that our Betas are pretty stable, we can only recommend Beta versions for adventurous advanced users rather than routine production use.

Why 2025 and not 2024?
This version is the new major version that will be the newest and greatest all through 2024 - 2025 and, maybe, beyond, receiving updates. There will be no 2025 version, so we decided to call this version 2025.

Download
Download from here:
https://download.blumentals.net/webuild2025beta4.exe

What's new?
Here is a list of changes and new features:
https://www.webuilderapp.com/whatsnew2025.php

Experimental, but game-changing AI
In-house we are using AI all the time, every day. We believe, it is a major breakthrough in the programming industry. So the new version has integration with AI chat, but there are some notes:
* Technology is new, it will contain bugs
* AI is not perfect, it may produce wrong answers sometimes
* We rely on ChatGPT currently. Version 3.5 works well and is very fast. Version 4.0 works well, but sometimes is rather slow, becauseo of OpenAI API slowness
* AI is a paid service, but we are including some free service credit out of our own pocket
* When you buy a license, you will get a lot of free credits included (for hundreds of requests) with your license key
* But now, for Beta, the only way to get free credits is to create a free Blumentals Software account (it will be optional with normal paid version), and it includes limited amount
* If you run out of free AI credits while using Beta, please contact us
More about AI: https://www.webuilderapp.com/ai.php

Installing WeBuilder 2025 beta
* Version 2025 can co-exist with WeBuilder 2022 and 2020 and it is installed in a separate folder by default.
* Almost all settings are shared between versions and you can use both versions.
* Be careful with uninstalling any version (new or old) of WeBuilder. Make sure you choose to keep your settings when prompted by installer.

How can I contribute when using Beta version?
* It is important that you report any bugs via our support website (https://www.webuilderapp.com/support-contact.php) mentioning that you are using Beta version (preferably state full version info from About box, e.g. 18.0.0.255)
* Beta most likely will contain bugs and every bug you find is a success if you report it to us. We are using Beta for web development tasks in-house already.
* Please contact support ONLY regarding bugs, errors and obvious misbehaviour. (Do not send us e-mails like "I do not like the splash-screen" or "why did you not add all the features I requested?")
* If you have some comments or thoughts that are not bug reports, please DO share them, but only in this forum.
* We have very limited resources and support staff is overloaded already. We will appreciate if you give precise and detailed step-by-step problem reports to maximize the efficiency of the communication.

When the official stable release is planned?
In March - May 2024.

Thank you and enjoy, you are the best!

[Uli]

Well, I like the idea about adding ChatGPT into the program.
I need to play a bit more with it to see if it is really helpful but the idea is great.

But one (design)problem right away: when I asked to write some code the result was displayed on a dark blue background and almost impossible to read (the inserting works fine but I'd like to see the code first and it's hard to read on the dark blue background).

[dmet]

Wow, the AI inclusion looks like it's going to be very useful. I'm looking forward to trying it out.

Congrats and thank you to the team!

[Aivars]

Uli: I'd like to explore this issue further. Do you have dark color scheme configured? Could you contact our support and list what color scheme and Interface style you use in your editor? Mention that Aivars asked you to write regarding the color issue in AI chat and let me know your Blumentals Account e-mail so I can add some credits for further testing.

[Uli]

Yes, I will do it right away

[Uli]

Just found another issue, you need to be aware when using AI:

I highlighted a line in my (PHP)code: it was a line with a sql SELECT command and opened an AI 3.5 chat (write code) and asked to secure the SQL command with the Prepare statement.
Without prompting the line was immediately overwritten with the suggested code which was actually just a sample solution how to write a prepare statement.
It should not be oeverwritten automatically and I learned that highlighting something in the editor while using AI is probably not a good idea as it can be overwritten without prior notice.

When I (instead of highlighting the line) copy he line into the AI chat and ask the same question, AI gives me a perfect suggstion. This time nothing has been inserted automatically but I could insert it using the + button.

And there is a spelling error in the AI chat: "Continue converastion" should be "Continue conversation"

[Aivars]

If you use "write code" it does not use the selected code because it's supposed to write a new code snippet or function or whatever, and it will always attempt to insert the written code immediately (unless there are multiple code blocks returned or so). You should be using "modify code" for modifications or "ask" for generic samples and questions about the selected code.
Thanks for noticing the spelling error, we had fixed it at some point but it has become unfixed at some point.

[Uli]

It does not use the selected code but if I have selected some code (which I am probably not supposed to do so before using AI Write Code) and let AI write some code the selected area will be replaced with the written code and my selected code is gone. Well - it is actually logical as the same will happen if I use CTRL+V, but however it might be an improvement if AI "write code" activly "de-selects" highlighted text before inserting something or at least gives a warning for sleepy coders. Just as an idea for unintentional overwriting.

[Aivars]

I think your concerns are valid and I will bring this up to Karlis.

[frogga]

Here are some bugs

1. Search for bug when code collapse present
Step to repeat: Select block of code, click - to collapse code, search for something within collapsed area, page content has a fit
Why this is a problem: Can't search code
Solution: close and reopen file

2. Text match does not always highlight, (this is a real pain)
Step to repeat: paste this code:
function test2(){ $test_2='test'; $test='test2'; } ?><p class="test_test">test</p><script>function test2(){ var test_3='test'; }</script><?php
select 'test', some tests are highlighted some are not.
Why this is a problem: This makes it hard to find all instances of a variable name or variations of a name
Solution: None

3. Indent match on paste feature - (On your feature page)
Step to repeat: Copy multiple lines of code, indent, past code, does not indent match
Why this is a problem: Slows down our engineers
Solution: Select code and manually indent

4. Green tag highlight incorrect when caret in <option>
Step to repeat:
add code <select><option></option></select>
place curse in <option> tag
Why this is a problem: minor inconvenience
Solution: none


Feature Requests
1. Only run spell check on HTML content - (Checkbox in spell check area) spell checking variable names produces lots of errors

2. Jump between html tag the same as jumping between bracket
Match Brackets could be rename to Match Highlight,
This would be a huge time saving, our last editor did this and was very helpful

Thanks so much for fixing the bug with new line on word wrap and adding css support for aspect-ratio: !!!

[Aivars]

I require some more information because I can't reproduce some of the issues. I'd like to work on them but I need some way to trigger them on my computer.

1. More info required: could you send a video? I'm trying to reproduce this and what happens is the collapsed area auto-expands to select the found text
2. By design - whole words are highlighted, it's usually very helpful because you can quickly highlight short variables like i or a, otherwise you would get a lot of hits as they are part of a lot of words
3. In requests but we need to be careful about how we implement this so that it does not become a nuisance
4. By design - we don't highlight tags that HTML5 standard sets as unclosable (e.g. img) or optionally closable (e.g. option, li).

Feature requests:
1. I need some more information, preferably a sample file. I tested the spell check and it does appear to only check content and strings.
2. In requests, I'll add +1

[frogga]

Thanks for your reply Aivars, I've put a video together as requested.

https://youtu.be/OLldWTbquGI

2. Highlight same text, understandable for small variable like i or a, but as projects get more complex short variable that are non descriptive are not used that often

3. 4. Thanks for the update

Feature Requests:
1. Your right spell check does just do content and strings, but really I think it should only do HTML content, spell checking an SQL statement is not required.
2. Thanks for +1 of tag/highlight jumping, I can't stress how much I miss this feature, we find we grab the mouse way more often than we used to

[Aivars]

I'm trying to reproduce the highlighting issue but I'm having no luck, can you spot if I'm doing something differently?
Video capture: https://1drv.ms/v/s!Ah2hh3juUZeuiJpLzV7 ... Q?e=0ZDTgk

[frogga]

I think it might be related to Word Wrap being turned on, when I turned it off the search inside of the collapsed code worked as expected.

Actually turning off Word Wrap mid search solves it too.

I'm on windows 10, I'll test on a couple of other devices too.

[Aivars]

That is an excellent observation and I can reproduce the issue now, thanks. I'll add it to the bug list and hopefully we can fix it during this beta.