Open Source Kickstarter Report Card

[Paul Hibbert]

I totally agree, I use Photoshop dialy and while I’m quite happy with a one window type of environment for image editing I really don’t feel it would be appropriate for app development.

However, there are some areas that I feel could be improved in the LC IDE, so I wrote my own plugin to help organise LC just how I like it, and then made another plugin to add some shortcuts that I prefer, so for me a better designed IDE doesn’t mean one pane for everything, but more options for custom shortcuts, tabbed panels that can be docked together etc. and options for arranging the IDE just how you like it and then being able to save those settings.

Photoshop is actually a very good model for a flexible working environment, especially for people that work on multiple monitors, it can be set up like you use GIMP with separate floating panels, or with docked panels or with a backdrop to obscure the finder and other distracting apps with shortcuts to make all open panels disappear (and reappear!). All of these settings can be saved as different workspaces, if LC could do that I would be really impressed and I’m sure many others would too.

Paul

> On Aug 18, 2015, at 20:59, Richmond <richmondmathewson at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> I'm messing around, as one does, in a scaffy carpark attached to the Conservatoire in Sofia, Bulgaria, having thrown one son on a plane to the States and waiting for the other from Germany.
> 
> But I digress . .  
> 
> Reading a book from 1999 about Visual  Basic 6 . . .
> 
> AND what do I see?  The "Visual Basic Integrated Development Environment",
> to which my immediate reaction is 'fioch'!
> 
> Although I can see why it might appeal to some people, and it is rather suggestive
> of "that picture".
> 
> I suppose this really comes down to whether you like the Photoshop IDE or the GIMP one:
> I prefer the latter; although I have to admit it was a shock after moving to it after Photoshop
> about 12 years ago.
> 
> My main 'beef' with an IDE of the VB6 type is that it blocks the desktop from view and doesn't
> seem good if one wants to rearrange where one's palettes sit on the screen.
> 
> Things might prove a bit awkward if one wants to make a stack as big as one's desktop if one
> cannot shunt palettes around and about.
> 
> Of course this is all about taste (meaning it's all in the mouth) so it would seem best, if an
> all-in-one IDE like the VB6 one is to be introduced to have it as one of 2 options.
> 
> Richmond.
> 
> from my jail-broken, recycled iPad 1
> 
> 
> On 19 Aug 2015, at 00:57, RunRevPlanet <feed at smpcsupport.com> wrote:
> 
>> Richmond said:
>> 
>>> I'd be interested to know where one can
>>> find these "usability standards", and by
>>> whom they are authorised to be 'standards'
>> 
>> I know of no single website to visit that lists usability standards.
>> 
>> When I think of such a concept, it is more about tools working in a way that I
>> do not have to switch my way of thinking too much when I go from one to another.
>> 
>> As a concrete example, in the Windows world Ctrl+H is most commonly used as the
>> keyboard shortcut for Find and Replace. No one is bullying tool vendors into
>> using this shortcut, but muscle memory is a wonderful time saver and stops me
>> from having to think so hard when coding when a tool vendor does follows the
>> convention.
>> 
>> A different type of example of what I see as a usability standard, is that all
>> the other IDE's I use do not put the Variables and Breakpoints list on different
>> panes of the same window. Forcing me, not only to use he mouse to switch between
>> them, but also preventing me from viewing them both at the same time.
>> 
>> Such an arrangement that currently exists in LiveCode does not break any rules,
>> but is hardly what I would call as good an arrangement used by other IDEs where
>> I can see them both *and* the entire call stack list simultaneously. There is no
>> good reason for LiveCode to be different when the current arrangement is less
>> convenient and forces me to work harder.
>> 
>> These are just two examples, but the are other issues listed in my previous
>> post.
>> 
>> As far as I am concerned, the Next Generation IDE is not about making something
>> new and shiny just because it looks cool and copies what every other tool vendor
>> is doing.
>> 
>> It is instead about making LiveCode a tool that doesn't make me have to remember
>> a different set of rules and conventions while working in it and doing common
>> basic actions, as compared to other popular editors and IDEs.
>> 
>> Following expected conventions also reduces the chance of new users dismissing
>> LiveCode immediately they try do some simple actions that all of the other
>> programming tools do, but LiveCode cannot.
>> 
>> To me usability standards are all about increasing the user base, and reducing
>> the effort of my hands and brain when in LiveCode.
>> --
>> Scott McDonald
>> "Components, Controls, Tools and Resources for LiveCode"
>> www.runrevplanet.com
>> 
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