How to Make Rev More Popular [Enhance the IDE]

Richard Gaskin ambassador at fourthworld.com
Tue Dec 6 00:27:01 EST 2005


Excellent stuff, Bill.  Thanks for putting that list together.

It's a lot to bite off, but to help make sure none of it gets lost I've 
entered it as a single BZ request under the title "Misc. Script Editor 
requests":

<http://support.runrev.com/bugdatabase/show_bug.cgi?id=3256>

--
  Richard Gaskin
  Managing Editor, revJournal
  _______________________________________________________
  Rev tips, tutorials and more: http://www.revJournal.com


Bill Marriott wrote:
> 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 



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