A Floating Window inspector Annoyance

General
1

<https://xojo.com/issue/54173>

I have the inspector and library set to be floating windows… (I suspect Norm does not! :wink: )

When I need to enter a lot of text and click on the pencil icon in the inspector, it opens a sheet on the IDE window which is in back of the inspector Window, which means I have to move the inspector window before I can enter (or read) the text…

That gets awfully annoying after a while!

What should happen is the the sheet should be on the inspector window or the text area on the inspector itself should expand somehow… Having to drag the inspector Window to get at the text area really is not acceptable in a profession UI.

2

Another floating window inspector pallet annoyance…

When I am debugging a method and in the debugger at a breakpoint with the inspector pallet closed and hit the edit pencil, the Floating Window Inspector pallet pops up in front of the code window…

The need to edit the method header/definition at that point is EXTREMELY rare… and that behavior is also VERY annoying after awhile…

Does this bother anyone else, or am I the only one who uses the inspector as a floating window?

  • Karen
3

Speaking of the inspector (and editing a method in general), I know this has been mentioned a number of times since the intro of the navigator but THIS really need to get fixed so that teh Xojo Idea feel more professional…

When I Right click on a navigator item select Inspect the inspector AND the code editor can sometimes go to the wrong method* ! … and more than once I have edited the wrong method and then scratched my head when things did not work afterwards…

I know Norm (back when he was there) has said it because the item is referenced by Name only, but when a user RIGHT CLICKS ON A SPECIFIC METHOD (not doing a search top find it) going to the wrong method, besides being annoying and potentially big producing, it REALLY makes Xojo look bad…

I think It was patched for overladed methods but not for the more general case…

It was an obvious upfront design flaw with teh navigator…

Once the ability to right click on a navigator item was added the shortcoming of using search under the hood should have become obvious quickly…

The obvious fix would have been to assign a serial number to each item when added to teh navigator and use that to know which one to edit. That way the could always unambiguously go to the right method no matter what the situation !!!

Right now I am in teh middle of a project with a lot of time pressure which makes these types of things a lot more annoying!!!

  • Currently I have a Shared method (which takes 2 parameters ) and an instance method that takes 1 on the same class with the same name… The 1st parameter on the Shared method corresponds to an instance property.

I also have a Shared method (which takes 1 parameter ) and a computed property on the same class with the same name… The parameter on the Shared method corresponds to an instance property

These both confuse the IDE…

But In both cases the pairs do the same thing, just in different situations, so having the same name for both makes sense … And well when I right click on a specific item I think it is not unreasonable to expect that one to be acted on!!!

-Karen (who is in a ranting mood)

4

[quote=416431:@Karen Atkocius]Speaking of the inspector (and editing a method in general), I know this has been mentioned a number of times since the intro of the navigator but THIS really need to get fixed so that teh Xojo Idea feel more professional…

When I Right click on a navigator item select Inspect the inspector AND the code editor can sometimes go to the wrong method* ! … and more than once I have edited the wrong method and then scratched my head when things did not work afterwards…

I know Norm (back when he was there) has said it because the item is referenced by Name only, but when a user RIGHT CLICKS ON A SPECIFIC METHOD (not doing a search top find it) going to the wrong method, besides being annoying and potentially big producing, it REALLY makes Xojo look bad…

I think It was patched for overladed methods but not for the more general case…

It was an obvious upfront design flaw with teh navigator…

Once the ability to right click on a navigator item was added the shortcoming of using search under the hood should have become obvious quickly…

The obvious fix would have been to assign a serial number to each item when added to teh navigator and use that to know which one to edit. That way the could always unambiguously go to the right method no matter what the situation !!!

Right now I am in teh middle of a project with a lot of time pressure which makes these types of things a lot more annoying!!!

  • Currently I have a Shared method (which takes 2 parameters ) and an instance method that takes 1 on the same class with the same name… The 1st parameter on the Shared method corresponds to an instance property.

I also have a Shared method (which takes 1 parameter ) and a computed property on the same class with the same name… The parameter on the Shared method corresponds to an instance property

These both confuse the IDE…

But In both cases the pairs do the same thing, just in different situations, so having the same name for both makes sense … And well when I right click on a specific item I think it is not unreasonable to expect that one to be acted on!!!

-Karen (who is in a ranting mood)[/quote]

Is there a case number for this?

5

As this kind of behavior has been mentioned occasionally over the last few years here including by staff, i assumed there was one …

But I could not find any so I created one:
<https://xojo.com/issue/54328>

6

Thanks for filing that report Karen.

7

Also, this would resolve this from one perspective:

<https://xojo.com/issue/46984>