LiveCode Forums.

This is must be really simple but i cant figure it out. I'm using a mac and livecode IDE completely fills the screen.
Thought control command F would do it.
How can i get it out of full screen?

Hi tedems,

welcome to the forum!

Sounds like the "Backdrop" is on!?
Go to menu "View" in LC and check if "Backdrop" is selected.
If yes, unselect it and that should fix it.


Best

Klaus

P.S.
Personal note:
A little "Hello" or something would not have hurt for the very first posting.

Thanks Klaus that worked!

The IDE dash is still fixed to the upper left . I was expecting something like a single window that has all of the IDE within it.

Is that possible?

thanks

The IDE dash is still fixed to the upper left . I was expecting something like a single window that has all of the IDE within it.

By "Dash" do you mean the tools palette, LC menuBar, etc?

If so, then no, those are all in fact separate stacks that comprise the IDE. You can change their locs, though. I find this a very good layout, since each element of the IDE is accessible.

Craig

tedems wrote: ↑

Fri Apr 09, 2021 3:33 pm

Thanks Klaus that worked!

Great!

tedems wrote: ↑

Fri Apr 09, 2021 3:33 pm

The IDE dash is still fixed to the upper left . I was expecting something like a single window that has all of the IDE within it.
Is that possible?

No, Livecode does not support the "one window" approach found in many apps on Windows.

You may also want to look up Richard’s excellent Devolution plugin to help tidy up the IDE. I’d recommend!
https://www.fourthworld.com/products/de ... index.html

At one point, a few years back, a single-window mode for the IDE was mooted as a possibility.

Personally, I think those single-window mode IDEs are a pain because you cannot move parts of them out of the way
when you are using other apps at the same time (I almost always use GIMP and FontForge).

I personally would favour single window interface. XCode is pretty good that way - easy to hide panels u don’t need and focus on what your doing.

I personally don’t feel any need to be able to see other apps while I’m working on code and vice versa... so for me at least, being able to see other apps while I’m doing stuff in LC doesn’t make any sense.

Just curious how important that is for other users?
And on the flip side, how many people find the multiple palette interface annoying?

I personally would favour single window interface.

Surely the way to keep everyone happy would be to offer both as options that can be set in the Preferences stack?

If you look at GIMP: https://www.gimp.org/

You will see that it offers both 'single window mode' and something like
the current LC IDE.

stam wrote: ↑

Sat Apr 10, 2021 7:41 pm

I personally would favour single window interface. XCode is pretty good that way - easy to hide panels u don’t need and focus on what your doing.

I personally don’t feel any need to be able to see other apps while I’m working on code and vice versa... so for me at least, being able to see other apps while I’m doing stuff in LC doesn’t make any sense.

Just curious how important that is for other users?
And on the flip side, how many people find the multiple palette interface annoying?

Me too.
Personally, I also prefer a single window. I don't really like multiple palettes that aren't docked to a specific position, and can't stand those draggable toolbar type apps that seem to deliberately get in the way of what I am working on. I hate the clutter of other apps and desktop artifacts distracting from the app / code I am working on.
I almost exclusively use Windows and this is what is probably the typical user experience/ expectation is. On other platforms, users are probably more used to the multiple palette interface. In LiveCode I always have the backdrop switched on. Having positioned my palettes and menus, this makes it a fairly close approximation of a single window interface. At least on Windows, that's possible. On Linux variants I gather the backdrop pretty much has to be turned off.

For drawing programs single window UIs are great.

But in a livecoding environment, where do you make your app's windows if there's only one window?

richmond62 wrote: ↑

Sat Apr 10, 2021 7:51 pm

I personally would favour single window interface.

Surely the way to keep everyone happy would be to offer both as options that can be set in the Preferences stack?

If you look at GIMP: https://www.gimp.org/

You will see that it offers both 'single window mode' and something like
the current LC IDE.

Sure - not saying everyone must be forced to my preferences!
Just saying I dislike the current interface and it probably is a turn-off for those coming from other languages/IDEs.
Having one or the other set as preferences would be fine.
But arguably having that kind of flexibility would sacrifice features as compromises would be needed to make it work... maybe...

Oddly enough the image of the proposed

"Full IDE Prototype *
A full prototype of a new IDE based on a solid architecture"

has vanished:

https://livecode.com/blog/page/45/?Tag= ... ion%20tool

FourthWorld wrote: ↑

Sat Apr 10, 2021 8:02 pm

For drawing programs single window UIs are great.

But in a livecoding environment, where do you make your app's windows if there's only one window?

That is a very valid point Richard, that other environments don’t have to tackle, as the design is also effectively the compiled app.
In other IDEs you would be working with a model of the stack or window, rather than with the stack itself like we do now.

You’re right - it wouldn’t work without a Very significant re-design of the liveCode concept.
And that might not be for the better....

I'm not sure I understand, but as I said, an approximation is to work with the backdrop turned on and palettes positioned as if docked inside the parent window. I am used to the LiveCode IDE and don't see a major need for change. But I am not sure "only one window" describes the situation well enough. "Only one containg window" maybe. If the backdrop were resizable and became the "containing window" with the menu bar docked across the top, and tools palette etc dockable within it that makes more sense. Already (on Windows anyway) if I double-click the title bar of a stack to maximise it in the IDE then it restricts itself to a limited portion of the screen. Perhaps better to compare the IDE with MS Word (or Libre Office Writer) and stacks being worked on as documents. You can resize/maximise/open/close documents within the bounds of the application.
No need to reinvent anything however.