How to Make Rev More Popular [Enhance the IDE]

[Bill Marriott]

Hi Dan,

Just getting around to answering your question posed earlier:

|> 5) Retro IDE. There have been improvements over time, but it's still 
kinda
|> long in the tooth. Just playing with a modern IDE for a while gives me 
all
|> kinds of shivers at what could be possible if Rev picked up the pace. So
|> many things are missing from it.
|
|Interesting list with some things that hadn't been discussed before.
|
|Can you elaborate on point 5? Some examples of "modern IDEs" that
|you think work better than Rev?

For one example of a very polished IDE, check out the free downloadable 
version of Microsoft Visual Basic Express:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/express/vb/

(or just take the web-based product tour.)

Of course, these guys have been making IDEs for years and have a huge staff 
of people to build them. But here are just some of the features that make 
the IDE in Visual Basic Express impressive:

- Overall modern look and feel
- All tool/properties palettes can be docked or floated as you like
- Greatly expanded collection of controls relative to Revolution including 
rich (HTML) text, and true tables.
- User-controlled Guide lines for aligning form objects
- Tabbed windows to manage multiple open forms/files
- Master expandable-shrinkable outline of all components of your project
- Easy menu creator/editor
- Collapse/Expand sections of your code
- "IntelliSense" statement completion shows parameters to functions so you 
don't have to visit the reference documentation
- Quick global change of variable names throughout a solution
- "Find All References" to show all code that references a routine
- AutoCorrect for 250 common coding mistakes
- "Compile as you type" underlines coding errors with squiggly lines (like 
misspelled words in Word)
- Built-in database design tools (including overviews of the relationships, 
key fields, etc.)
- SQL data source setup wizards
- Visual setup for web services (Amazon, Google, etc.)
- Better auto-formatting compared to Revolution.
- UI for code snippets and templates
- Built-in support for creating Windows system tray 
icons/menus/notifications, etc
- Built-in Web Browser control (ala altBrowser)

I think special mention needs to be given to the process for building 
applications in Visual Basic Express. It really handles it *all* for you --  
including icons, linking docs to runtime solutions, correct Add/Remove 
programs support (installer, uninstaller), adding icons to the Start menu, 
code-free mutli-user settings manager, automatically determining library 
dependencies, etc.

It *even* will make your program -- without you writing any code -- able to 
automatically update itself when you post a new version online! Is that 
spiffy, or what?

Adding just three or four of these capabilities to Revolution would 
significantly advance the usability of the IDE.... and the appeal/popularity 
of Revolution overall.

Bill