Hi Dan, Just getting around to answering your question posed earlier:
|> 5) Retro IDE. There have been improvements over time, but it's still kinda |> long in the tooth. Just playing with a modern IDE for a while gives me all |> kinds of shivers at what could be possible if Rev picked up the pace. So |> many things are missing from it. | |Interesting list with some things that hadn't been discussed before. | |Can you elaborate on point 5? Some examples of "modern IDEs" that |you think work better than Rev? For one example of a very polished IDE, check out the free downloadable version of Microsoft Visual Basic Express: http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/express/vb/ (or just take the web-based product tour.) Of course, these guys have been making IDEs for years and have a huge staff of people to build them. But here are just some of the features that make the IDE in Visual Basic Express impressive: - Overall modern look and feel - All tool/properties palettes can be docked or floated as you like - Greatly expanded collection of controls relative to Revolution including rich (HTML) text, and true tables. - User-controlled Guide lines for aligning form objects - Tabbed windows to manage multiple open forms/files - Master expandable-shrinkable outline of all components of your project - Easy menu creator/editor - Collapse/Expand sections of your code - "IntelliSense" statement completion shows parameters to functions so you don't have to visit the reference documentation - Quick global change of variable names throughout a solution - "Find All References" to show all code that references a routine - AutoCorrect for 250 common coding mistakes - "Compile as you type" underlines coding errors with squiggly lines (like misspelled words in Word) - Built-in database design tools (including overviews of the relationships, key fields, etc.) - SQL data source setup wizards - Visual setup for web services (Amazon, Google, etc.) - Better auto-formatting compared to Revolution. - UI for code snippets and templates - Built-in support for creating Windows system tray icons/menus/notifications, etc - Built-in Web Browser control (ala altBrowser) I think special mention needs to be given to the process for building applications in Visual Basic Express. It really handles it *all* for you -- including icons, linking docs to runtime solutions, correct Add/Remove programs support (installer, uninstaller), adding icons to the Start menu, code-free mutli-user settings manager, automatically determining library dependencies, etc. It *even* will make your program -- without you writing any code -- able to automatically update itself when you post a new version online! Is that spiffy, or what? Adding just three or four of these capabilities to Revolution would significantly advance the usability of the IDE.... and the appeal/popularity of Revolution overall. Bill _______________________________________________ use-revolution mailing list [email protected] Please visit this url to subscribe, unsubscribe and manage your subscription preferences: http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-revolution
