wishes for the Designer

Dave O

Well-Known Member
Licensed User
Longtime User
Hi there, just bought B4A after liking it during the trial period. I actually got an old Palm app running in Android in a few days of (enjoyable) mucking around.

A few (OK, more than a few) wishes for the B4A Designer:

- Wish the Designer could be docked into the main IDE, like VB and most other IDEs do. Managing a separate window is extra overhead.

- Similarly, wish the Designer could be more compactly laid out for smaller screens (e.g. laptops). There is some wasted space there, and lists I rarely use.

- Would be good if the Designer could be topmost only for B4A, not Windows-wide.

- May be more efficient to change the View pulldown to a listbox (like Image Files), for quicker access to views. That would also let me glance over to check the name of a widget when coding.

- View pulldown - I can click in it and type, but not sure what that does. If it does nothing, making it a pulldown (instead of a combobox) would make it an easier target to click.

- ProgressBar - Wish the "Progress" property was available in the Designer.

- Would like the option to always auto-expand all properties (e.g. Text Style), so I don't have to keep re-opening them whenever I select a different widget.

- Would be great if I could press F1 (Help) when selecting a property in the Designer (or in the code editor) to get specific help on it (like VB does).

- Undo would be welcome, like when I accidently move a widget.

- Would like to be able to add items to a scrollview at design time - that is, add them to the scrollview like they can be added to panels, either by setting their Parent property or by selecting the scrollview and adding a new view to it.

- Generate Members - When adding event subs, always adding a blank line between them (consistently) would save some minor cleanup.

- Generate Members - Adding an option to generate the LoadLayout code for the activity would be handy.

None of these are a big deal, just small refinements that might speed up coding.

Hope this helps! :sign0098:
 

Erel

B4X founder
Staff member
Licensed User
Longtime User
Hope this helps!
It does. Thank you.

There are plans to make an additional internal visual box that will show the layout (as boxes) inside the IDE.
B4A visual designer is actually more complicated than Visual Studio visual designer as the designer itself runs inside the Android device. This makes the designer a true WYSIWYG designer, but it also makes things a bit more cumbersome (Visual studio doesn't need to do it as it can easily draw the Windows controls).
 

pcbtmr

Member
Licensed User
Longtime User
Another Wished for option in the Designer: When the view Visible property is false it would be nice if it wasn't visible (ie:eek:n top of/hiding other views).
Thanks.

EDIT: Sorry, hadn't discovered Bring To Front!
 
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rgately

Member
Licensed User
Longtime User
I would like to see the Abstract Designer feel more integrated. What I mean is...

1) have it fill the entire screen
2) have an icon toolbar for the controls
3) automatically create an Activity Module for Layouts
4) nudge controls using the arrow keys (based upon grid setting)


One problem I'm experiencing is, when I Generate Members from the Designer, I sometimes forget to change to the activity module which uses the layout and then the members are generated to the wrong activity module. But it's easy enough to cut and paste them to where they belong.

Its working very well for me to use the Abstract Designer and a connected device at the same time. I feel no need to use the Android emulator.

Thanks for a great product.
 

moster67

Expert
Licensed User
Longtime User
One problem I'm experiencing is, when I Generate Members from the Designer, I sometimes forget to change to the activity module which uses the layout and then the members are generated to the wrong activity module. But it's easy enough to cut and paste them to where they belong.

Yep, this happens to me as well and I have reported it earlier here on the forum. Rather annoying and especially if "Generate Members" generates lots of codes.

Erel, would it be possible to insert some kind of warning such as "Are you sure that you want to add the Generated Code to this module?" This warning-message could be enabled/disabled in the IDE-options for those who don't want it.
 

ChrShe

Member
Licensed User
Longtime User
Being someone who is shiny-new to Android (and Smartphone) development, it would also be rather handy to be able to put percentages (i.e. 100%x or 100%y) in for the Left, Top, Width and Height properties.
 

Hubert Brandel

Active Member
Licensed User
Longtime User
Hi,

we can mark one view and dublicate it on the same Activity.
Thats fine.

Sometimes I have one or more buttons or views I need on more than one activity. It would be perfect to mark one or more views and duplicate them to the clipboard. Then import them with SAME values (all with LEFT and TOP) onto another Activity. Today I have to write down all the properties and create a new one.
 
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stevel05

Expert
Licensed User
Longtime User
@Hubert
You could use File/Save As then delete anything you don't want on the new activity. It depends how many views you have to delete, but it would probably be quicker than writing them down.
 

Hubert Brandel

Active Member
Licensed User
Longtime User
Hi,

Thanks, I do this when I start a new activity, but sometimes I just want to add same looking views on more than one activity ;-)
 

legion48

Member
Licensed User
Longtime User
When F5 is clicked to compile and run, a "B4A Bridge not started" message would appear instead of me having to wait ages for the connection to fail before I can start the damn bridge that I'm always forgetting to start in the first place.:BangHead:
 

ChrShe

Member
Licensed User
Longtime User
I'm by no means an expert! But it seems to me that yoy could dynamically create a button and copy/paste the code to each activity that needs it.
Or...(haven't tried this)...perhaps create a global class for the control and reference it when needed.

Either would be easier than writing down the properties.

~Chris
 

latcc

Banned
Multi-view selection during design time
I would like to be able to click on more than one view in a parent activity or panel using the CTRL key. This way you could click on a view, then hold down the CTRL key and select further views before dragging them to a new position.

(This would help in (say) a display of buttons or other views where the display presentation of these views has already been done.)
 

COBRASoft

Active Member
Licensed User
Longtime User
Some goodies

Well, I'm brand new to B4A (started development yesterday), but I'm a very experienced Winforms developer.

Some suggestions (if I may):
- Real containers: tabpages, ...
- More views (controls) like datepicker, charts, grid, gauges, ...
- Menu designer
- Skins (wishfull thinking)
- Transparent activity, if that's possible by Android
- 'Double-click' to create the 'default' event like click for a button
- LayoutControl for placing things easier
- Docking (left, top, right, bottom)
- Anchor (left, top, right, bottom)

The last 3 are specially interesting when the user changes orientation.

I know some of these are available as extra libraries, but that's not interesting at design-time.

And euhm, very great job Erel! B4A is amazing.
 
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latcc

Banned
I think the abstract designer is pretty good as it is. The only real bug I find regularly is that the designer's window does not change correctly as you switch between layouts. I have to go back and forth between layouts to make sure I am getting the full layout screen shown and not a window size from the previous layout I was using. It doesn't always refresh to the correct size.

Apart from that it is pretty great! I don't think it needs endless improvements. It is not meant to replace the emulator, after all, just be a quick layout designer.
 
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