One-windowed IDE?

[HotColdLava]

I'm brand new to LiveCode, as a refuge from Xojo. However, I would LOVE to see a "one windowed" style for the IDE.

The "multiple window" aspect of this IDE is the only thing that bugs me

[dunbarx]

Hi.

Not sure what you mean. You may have as many windows open as you wish, including one. Having the power and flexibility to have more, should you want to, could only be a good thing. I am sure I am misunderstanding your point.

Craig Newman

[dave.kilroy]

Craig I wonder if HotColdLava means having the IDE in one window like Xojo and Visual Studio and Xcode do it (rather than having separate floating windows for code editor, tool bar etc)

HotColdLava if this is the case then you might be interested in this newsletter article by Mats Wilstrand on his rIDE project http://newsletters.livecode.com/februar ... tter2.html

Kind Regards

Dave

PS: in the beginning I also didn't like the multi-window approach LC takes but now I quite like it (for example if you work on multiple screens you can maximise the code editor on one monitor and have everything else on the other...

[FourthWorld]

The challenge with LC is that it differs from most other development environments in its absence of a compile-runtime cycle.

In XCode, Xojo, or VB, for example, the "window" you're laying out controls in isn't a window per se at all, but a proxy of a window that will be created later after you compile.

With LC, the window you're building is also the window you'll run - indeed, it actually is running even in the IDE - truly "live code".

So given that the window is a real window rather than a proxy, attaching the various toolbars to it would turn your window into the IDE's window, obviating opportunities for seeing the true, "live" runtime behavior which characterizes LC.

But I agree that for many, esp. those familiar with the proxy-oriented IDEs, it would be nice to bind all the windows together. And apparently this isn't lost on the folks at RunRev either:

They've been exploring options for having a single-window IDE, though I'm not sure I would expect it for v8.0. While this would make LC more comfortable for newcomers accustomed to other tools, I hope it's done as an option, and that we retain the ability to do true live coding with independent windows, since some of the things we code have to do with the interactions between windows.

Single-window IDEs can be helpful for some aspects of layout, but in practice we really only work on layout a minority of the full time over a project. Most of our time is spent in coding, where working on window interactions is extremely valuable.

[HotColdLava]

The challenge with LC is that it differs from most other development environments in its absence of a compile-runtime cycle.

In XCode, Xojo, or VB, for example, the "window" you're laying out controls in isn't a window per se at all, but a proxy of a window that will be created later after you compile.

With LC, the window you're building is also the window you'll run - indeed, it actually is running even in the IDE - truly "live code".

So given that the window is a real window rather than a proxy, attaching the various toolbars to it would turn your window into the IDE's window, obviating opportunities for seeing the true, "live" runtime behavior which characterizes LC.

But I agree that for many, esp. those familiar with the proxy-oriented IDEs, it would be nice to bind all the windows together. And apparently this isn't lost on the folks at RunRev either:

They've been exploring options for having a single-window IDE, though I'm not sure I would expect it for v8.0. While this would make LC more comfortable for newcomers accustomed to other tools, I hope it's done as an option, and that we retain the ability to do true live coding with independent windows, since some of the things we code have to do with the interactions between windows.

Single-window IDEs can be helpful for some aspects of layout, but in practice we really only work on layout a minority of the full time over a project. Most of our time is spent in coding, where working on window interactions is extremely valuable.

Generally, I have no problems with designing the interface in an separate window. (Think pre-Xcode 4). However, I wouldn't mind having all of the tools (Inspectors, GUI Component Picker, etc) jumbled up into one Window, like the rIDE mentioned.


I guess I'm just new to this whole concept of Proxy IDEs. I would love to see a fullscreen option though

[jacque]

A single window interface would get in my way on those occasions when I need to compare a LiveCode field with a text document, or an imported image with the original. Photoshop makes me crazy with that. But that's probably just me.

You can sort of simulate it by turning on the backdrop though. It isn't the same but visually it's sort of comparable.

[richmond62]

One of the things that came up in the Kickstarter campaign was a mockup of a single-window environment.

Whether that will ever materialise I don't know:
if it does I hope RunRev retains the option to have the current
interface as I much prefer it to a single windowed interface.

[Sean O'Connor]

Goodness I had almost forgotten about that one!!! I guess with the use of multiple monitor setups it was ultimately considered not a viable option.but it did look interesting and not too cluttered either(not that there is anything wrong with the current IDE) although bigger fonts on the menues wouldn't go amis or compatability with tts technology. then RR could say with complete honesty "anyone can code"( except for little toddlers of course) Ok maybe i'm stretching the boundaries a bit on the tts compliance, but then...... who knows??

[FourthWorld]

One of the things that came up in the Kickstarter campaign was a mockup of a single-window environment.

Whether that will ever materialise I don't know:
if it does I hope RunRev retains the option to have the current
interface as I much prefer it to a single windowed interface.

Given that layout tasks are the only ones that benefit from a single-window UI, and that layout tasks comprise a minority of the time we spend on a project, I'd wager they'll make any single-window UI purely optional.

In most IDEs there's a very slender relationship between UI and code, so simulating windows with a proxy works well enough. With LiveCode, of course, code and objects are tightly integrated, and once we consider things like multi-card stacks it becomes clear that a simple simulated proxy won't cut it for us.

Such a UI would require adding a new object to the mix.

In Gain Momentum (a great Unix xTalk originally made by Sybase in the mid-90s and later sold to another company and ported to Windows, where it's fallen into relative obscurity under a different name since) they had a control type called "Viewer", in which you could set a property that refers to another stack and that stack would be rendered within the Viewer. And not merely rendered: its entire message path within the viewer reflected the message path of the stack being viewed, so interactions with it were pretty much as you'd expect if the stack were opened in its own window - only within a Viewer it happens to appear within another stack.

Powerful stuff. Way beyond groups, and useful not only for making a single-window UI but for a great many other things for our own projects as well.

The idea's been floating around in the community for some time:
http://quality.runrev.com/show_bug.cgi?id=2786

This is what's needed for a single-window UI, and given the anticipated complexity of it I wouldn't expect to see it in v8.0, or maybe not even by 8.5, given the range of things they need to do for Open Language, Widgets, and Themes, and the various other Road Map goals dependent on those.

This is more or less what they're considering to be able to deliver a single-window UI option. So yes, it's something they've been exploring, but no, I wouldn't expect to see it until deeper foundational elements are in place first.

[[-hh]]

I second jacque's remark:

You can have this even better with a (virtual) backdrop. "Backdrops" can be one or more substacks with some features (I made a very basic approach to this for the RaspberryPi where LC's backdrop doesn't work).

This implies you can also easily switch from one view to another view (different or no backdrop) and use several monitors (virtual screens) for different collections of your current open set of windows.

One of the main advantages of LC is that one is never forced to be hierarchical or to have a proper desktop. To be creative implies (for me) to have a chaotic desktop, on my monitor as in real life.

So yes, have a one-windowed IDE, but only as a (non-default) option.