IDE oddities (was Re: Error Messages Are Evil)

[Devin Asay]

On May 16, 2014, at 10:16 AM, Dave Kilroy <dave at applicationinsight.com>
 wrote:

> Hi Devin
> 
> Sorry to be vague, didn't think I needed to say how unreliable it the menu
> tool is - it has bitten me in the past and plenty of others too. What
> usually happens is that you set up your menus and then when you reopen the
> stack half of the entries will have vanished, or some will be disabled and
> others not. It doesn't happen every time but often enough that I don't trust
> it at all and I build menus by script now as I'm so fed up with it. Similar
> to the Geometry Manager in that if it did what it was supposed in a reliable
> fashion it would be fine (if limited) - the fact is that it and the Menu
> Builder are not to be relied on (imo obviously)


Wow, I had no idea some folks were having problems like this with the Menu Builder. I have always found it solid and reliable. (My experience with the Geo Manager, however, has been similar to yours.) So really, this is a case not so much of an interface design problem, but of a component that doesn't always work as advertised. It might not belong on my list then, but definitely worth taking a look at at a utility that needs troubleshooting.

Devin


Devin Asay
Office of Digital Humanities
Brigham Young University