Other B4J - New IDE is available (BETA)!!!

[Erel]

I'm excited to release the first beta version of the new IDE.

As discussed in this thread, the IDE was rewritten.

The new IDE is significantly more powerful, smarter, more modern and more scalable.

There are too many improvements to list them all.

I will just list some features that are less obvious:

- Press on Ctrl + Click to jump to an identifier (sub, variables, etc.).
- Themes - Ctrl + T
- Sophisticated conditional compilation: #If, #Else If, #Else and support for OR and AND.
- Dockable layout. Including support for multiple open editors.
- Find all references - F7.
- Quick search - Ctrl + F.
- Goto sub / module - Ctrl + E.
- Smarter autocomplete.
- Hover over variables and expressions in debug mode.
- Structure matching.
- Automatic warnings and errors highlighting.

Requirements

- Microsoft .Net Framework 4.0+ is required. If you are running Windows XP then you should install .Net Framework 4.0: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=17851

- Developers running Vista or above should install .Net Framework 4.5.2: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=42642
It is important to install the latest version as it includes important fixes. Some of the optimizations will be disabled with older versions.

This is a beta version of a new IDE. Please make sure to backup any important project before opening it with the new IDE. You can install this IDE together with a previous version (install it to a different folder).

You can download the beta version here: www.b4x.com/b4j/files/beta.exe

Please post any issues you encounter in a new thread in B4J forums.

 

[Erel]

1. Make sure to use the latest .Net Framework.
2. Try to disable hardware acceleration: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa970912.aspx#registry_settings

 

[jmon]

Regarding the auto completion, I found that it trims some characters in this case:

consider this case:

Type People(Name As String, Age As Int, _
    Street As String)

I want to add "Country As String" just after "Age As Int,":

Type People(Name As String, Age As Int, Country As Str _
    Street As String)

If I press CTRL+Space just after typing "Str", the menu shows, I press DOWN to select "String", then I press ENTER

--> The Underscore dissapears.

I should have:

Type People(Name As String, Age As Int, Country As String _
    Street As String)

but I get:

Type People(Name As String, Age As Int, Country As String
    Street As String)

*(Note that I think that Auto completion should at least pre-select the first item in the list, so we shouldn't have to press DOWN to select "String" in this case)

Thanks a lot, even though there are still some issues like the one I mentioned, I still use the new IDE because it's so awesome. Fantastic work @Erel!

 

[Erel]

The underscore is considered part of the current word. This is why the auto complete doesn't start automatically and this is the reason why String is not preselected. You should leave a space between the underscore and the word you want to add.

 

[positrom2]

Erel:
Disabling hardware acceleration does have other weird side effects -the second monitor does not seem to be updated in a reasonable time, so that is no solution.
The .net version appears to be uptodate- Windows update does not propose any action.
Could you tell what the differences are in the screen handling of the new IDE and the old ones?

It would be ridiculous if one would have to buy new hardware to use the new IDE.
Maybe the system requirements should be indicated since the chance would be that new hardware would not be sufficient...
I hope there will be another solution.

 

[Erel]

The new IDE is a standard WPF application (the current IDE is based on WinForms).
It doesn't do anything special.
I also don't see anything that can be done in the IDE code to help in this case as the layout drawing is managed by .Net.
You can try to follow this guide: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/963021

Specifically make sure that your display driver is updated and that you are running .Net Framework 4.5.2: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=42642

 

[dilettante]

It is also possible for various .Net Frameworks to "break" and when installed as part of Windows there is no practical way to repair them aside from a clean reinstall of Windows.

Can't wait for the IDE and compiler to be rewritten in Java.

 

[positrom2]

Erel:
Thanks, By running your .net installer link something was fixed, apparently. The problem with the new IDE was gone. Exposing that link on the download page would be helpful to prevent this kind of disaster.

there is no practical way to repair them aside from a clean reinstall of Windows.

Quite comforting... but in this case repairing seemed to be feasible.

 

[Erel]

Very good. I've included the link in the release notes of B4A. Will also add it here.

 

[jmon]

Is the Rapid Debugger broken with the Beta #7? I change strings in some subs and they are not reloaded in real time.

 

[Erel]

Please start a new thread for this and describe the exact steps required to reproduce it. I'm not familiar with such an issue.

 

[Swissmade]

Small Issue,

When I do a quick-search and insert some lines the bookmark for the next search result is not stopping on the correct row but somewhere else.
I have to do a new search to correct this.

 

[Erel]

It is fixed in beta #8 which will be released later today.

 

[Swissmade]

It is fixed in beta #8 which will be released later today.

Thanks Erel

 

[jmon]

Beta #8 fixes all the bugs I had :

• Debug hot swap that wasn't working
• Find Sub / Module that was displaying an error message when pressing down arrow or clicking on a sub name
• Auto - completion in sub name jumps to the end of the name now, which shows clearly that it's not supported yet
• [EDIT] also the icons in the module list now show the classes / code module properly.

Thanks a lot for this awesome work and for the super quick fixes, you're almost there!

 

[Swissmade]

Hi Erel,

If I press F3 to Search then the window is starting with Quick Replace.
Is it possible to set this default to Quick Find and not to Quick Replace.
Maybe I can set this parameter somewhere.

 

[Erel]

Why are you using it instead of Ctrl + F (which is much more powerful)?

 

[Arash Davidi]

hi i found couple of ui bugs!
1-where is the horizontal duplicated document handle? the vertical one is there and you can pull it and open another source window from top?
2-also when i use F7 on a declare and the selected word became highlighted, when i want to get back and close the function, the highlighted word wouldn't back to normal

 

[jmon]

the highlighted word wouldn't back to normal

You need to press the "X" button next to the search input

 

[Erel]

You can also press F7 again when the cursor is not inside a valid symbol.

 

[Swissmade]

Why are you using it instead of Ctrl + F (which is much more powerful)?

I know quick-search is more powerful but sometimes I only like to search in one Module and not all.