Project Navigation & Productivity

Xojo R2. I am having a problem with the concepts of tabs and the jump bar. In RealStudio I really liked bookmarks. You could create a bookmark for a section of code, lets say the open event for a window. You could rename the bookmark “Open Event Win1” or whatever you wanted. You could jump back to that and it would point you right where you wanted.

In Xojo it looks like there are “tabs”. It looks like this might fit he bill but I don’t fully understand them. For instance, I can not click on an event that has code and select “open in a new tab” it simply isn’t there. I can click on the window, but that will only provide a tab that exposes all of the lower nodes for the window. Furthermore I don’t see anyway to rename a the tab, so if there is only one widow in your application all of the tabs will be named the same. Having all the tabs named the same makes finding the tab that has the “view” you want more difficult than scrolling the project list. Also the lock does not seem to have any functionality.

Am I missing something? How are you using tabs?

Yes.

Yes, that’s the problem with Xojo. Navigation is a mess.

There is an option to open double clicks in a new tab. Thus you could double click your event and it will appear in a new tab, vs. single click it for the current tab.

I just penned “Why I Hate the Navigator” at http://www.bkeeneybriefs.com/2013/07/why-i-hate-the-xojo-navigator/. Feel free to add your own thoughts.

OMG! It’s full of letters! :slight_smile: Thanks Bob, you write free, personal, not biased thoughts.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I0i-whGHf-Y

I try to be reasonable in my rants. :slight_smile:

Yes thank you Bob, well written.

I know I’ve been frustrated with the changes myself and have said so in another thread but I try to remind myself it’s not easy getting everything correct the first time and I have faith in Xojo inc. that they will listen to their customers and correct these problems.

:slight_smile:

Very good article Bob. Being that your a long time contributor to the efforts of Real Software and Xojo, hopefully they will read this and provide an update to address some of this.

For right now I only have the comfort in the fact I’m not the only one lost in the forest here.

If you are interested in making the Navigator work more like the old Project Tab (objects only), please sign on for <https://xojo.com/issue/28400>. The only way to voice our opinion is to let them know.

Ok… how does one "sign on " to show support?

I can see it, read it… but I don’t see a “like” type button

By “Show only high level objects” do you mean you accept keeping navigator and having a kind of filter to switch the view? Or you imagine other kind of thing? (Probably this is the fast way)

In Feedback. open case 28400.
Select My Top Cases from the list on the left.
Drag and drop the open feedback case to one or the available slots. This gives it points. It’s how the ‘rankings’ get tabulated.

For me, the really annoying thing about the Navigator is that shows me every single method, event, property, constant, etc. when I’d much prefer them to be shown only when I switch to the Code Editor. This is how Real Studio did it with the Project tab and switching to individual editors.

I believe this solves most of our problems but still leaves the high level Navigator (i.e. the Project tab) there. I think at that point the Navigator becomes far more useful.

I just found my new #1 case.

I believe I understand. Then, maybe a smart filter with a kind of “Show Navigation” / “Show Objects” flip-flop button on navigator could help. Changing to show Objects, the navigation should hide everything except those main objects and then double-clicking the object, a new tab, with that object only, in a “show all” mode exploded showing all it’s contents, could give us the focus. Is this one possible solution?

Okay, I applied my points!

BTW does anybody want to trade Frequent Flier Miles for Xojo Points? :slight_smile:

Also in my #1 slot, and now it’s up to 29th place.

I’d be perfectly happy if this were an settable option in the IDE preferences, or maybe a quick keyboard toggle between the two modes.

Now at #28. Would love for this sucker to make the top 20.

I did my part. Made it my top case.

Favorited. It’s up to 24th.