App Browser versus Project Browser

[Monte Goulding]

> On 8 Oct 2015, at 8:59 am, Richard Gaskin <ambassador at fourthworld.com> wrote:
> 
> > Well, all I can suggest is that LiveCode produces a hybrid
> > [ chimæ ra ??? ] and see what the response is . . .
> 
> Maybe that would be useful, but maybe LiveCode Ltd. doesn't need to build it.

rIDE was nice but I think it may have suffered from the same single hierarchy issue that the project browser suffers from.

At one point I was thinking of making a stack browser that behaved like the column view in the finder but then I realised that the most annoying thing about the application browser is its use of horizontal space. Unfortunately it’s the use of horizontal space that makes it more functional… Perhaps if it had some nice behavior when the columns compact up and a good way to provide context it would work… We all need to get our Scott Rossi hats on and come up with a UI that both minimises use of horizontal space and keeps the list as clean as possible so you can just look at the objects on a single card.

Other than that I would say I’d be happier with it if we lost a few pixels from each line to make it more compact vertically.

There’s a few other features I’d add as well…

The root of the hierarchy could be Top Stack, Open Stacks, All Stacks, Front Scripts, Back Scripts, Stacks In Use. The card list could have Current Card at the top. If you have the current card selected then as the current card changes the object list updates to show the correct list. This is particularly helpful if you have top stack > current card selected.

Direct integration between the project browser and the script editor would be very nice too. Some kind of context mode in the script editor that would switch the script in the script editor to the selected obhect with some indication of unsaved or unset scripts on the project browser.. Extra bonus points if you can include the project browser directly into the script editor as a pane… Very much like how the inspector will change when you select an object. It seems reasonable that the script editor could have such a mode that would update with object selection via project browser or other means.

Cheers

Monte