Hi all,
B4A is a very powerful tool, and the IDE and the Designer are great ! Though I think they could be even greater with a few additions...
** IDE **
- I'm getting lazy, so being able to close the "Find/Replace" tool window (and all tool windows in general) with the Esc key would be handy (like the Compile window, for instance)
- Sometimes the F12 key doesn't see the keyword when the cursor is at the very end of the word. Fortunately there's the Ctrl+click option : very handy, but I always forget it ! I'm too used to keyboard shortcuts...
- In the same vein, would it be possible to have Ctrl+F and Ctrl+F3 take the current word into account, just like F7 does ? Maybe I'm too used to that in VB6, but it's so handy !
- I'd love to see Ctrl+F3 auto-select the word under the cursor (like F7) and perform a "Find next occurence"...
- When hovering the mouse over a variable name declared as a "constant" (Dim myVar as Int = 5), it would be nice to have its value displayed along in the tooltip text : "myVar as Int = 5" instead of just "myVar as Int".
- The IDE freezes my computer sometimes, for a few seconds. Not sure if it occurs when the code gets a bit heavy and the engine wants to spell-check everything, or if there's something else running in the background... Maybe it's checking the connection state ? Or (more likely) is it Java working hard ? All I know is that it gets really annoying !
- (Not sure about this one) It might be handy to have Ctrl+click on an "End If" bring the cursor back to the matching "If". Same for "Select" and other loop/conditional structures.
** Designer **
- It would be very handy to have the "Send to back" and "Bring to front" sub-menuitems in the "Views Tree" tab (between "Anchor" and "Generate", exactly like the menu in the Abstract Designer). This would be a great time-saver, as it would avoid having to right-click in the Abstract designer : when a view is hidden underneath others, it's very difficult (if not impossible) to bring it to the front, apart with a tedious right-click on one corner.
- The "Views Tree" tab should feature the "Add View" option as well... Actually, this tab should have all the items from the Abstract Designer's popup menu !
- The "Generate members" window would be a bit nicer if it showed all members' nodes already expanded. It's tedious to open each node when you have 5 or more fresh views to add to the code... Another feature would be nice : Ctrl+click on a checkbox would check/uncheck all members' events. Say you have 3 buttons and 2 ListViews. Hitting Ctrl+click on the Click event of one button would check the Click event on all other buttons, and also that same event on the ListViews - plus the default event on views that don't handle a Click event, for instance.
B4A is a very powerful tool, and the IDE and the Designer are great ! Though I think they could be even greater with a few additions...
** IDE **
- I'm getting lazy, so being able to close the "Find/Replace" tool window (and all tool windows in general) with the Esc key would be handy (like the Compile window, for instance)
- Sometimes the F12 key doesn't see the keyword when the cursor is at the very end of the word. Fortunately there's the Ctrl+click option : very handy, but I always forget it ! I'm too used to keyboard shortcuts...
- In the same vein, would it be possible to have Ctrl+F and Ctrl+F3 take the current word into account, just like F7 does ? Maybe I'm too used to that in VB6, but it's so handy !
- I'd love to see Ctrl+F3 auto-select the word under the cursor (like F7) and perform a "Find next occurence"...
- When hovering the mouse over a variable name declared as a "constant" (Dim myVar as Int = 5), it would be nice to have its value displayed along in the tooltip text : "myVar as Int = 5" instead of just "myVar as Int".
- The IDE freezes my computer sometimes, for a few seconds. Not sure if it occurs when the code gets a bit heavy and the engine wants to spell-check everything, or if there's something else running in the background... Maybe it's checking the connection state ? Or (more likely) is it Java working hard ? All I know is that it gets really annoying !
- (Not sure about this one) It might be handy to have Ctrl+click on an "End If" bring the cursor back to the matching "If". Same for "Select" and other loop/conditional structures.
** Designer **
- It would be very handy to have the "Send to back" and "Bring to front" sub-menuitems in the "Views Tree" tab (between "Anchor" and "Generate", exactly like the menu in the Abstract Designer). This would be a great time-saver, as it would avoid having to right-click in the Abstract designer : when a view is hidden underneath others, it's very difficult (if not impossible) to bring it to the front, apart with a tedious right-click on one corner.
- The "Views Tree" tab should feature the "Add View" option as well... Actually, this tab should have all the items from the Abstract Designer's popup menu !
- The "Generate members" window would be a bit nicer if it showed all members' nodes already expanded. It's tedious to open each node when you have 5 or more fresh views to add to the code... Another feature would be nice : Ctrl+click on a checkbox would check/uncheck all members' events. Say you have 3 buttons and 2 ListViews. Hitting Ctrl+click on the Click event of one button would check the Click event on all other buttons, and also that same event on the ListViews - plus the default event on views that don't handle a Click event, for instance.