IDE in Windows 8 Laptop 1366x768 Resolution

Yesterday I flew back to the US from the UK so had 8 hours to kill, and I decided to have a good session in XOJO on my Windows 8 laptop with 1366x786 resolution. Although during the last week, I had done 20-30 mins here and there, the reason why I was over in the UK was taking precedent. I actually had some quality time.

I have to say, and I wonder if others have similar views if they’re on the same resolution, is that I found overall the experience in the new IDE on the 1366x768 resolution under Windows 8 to be less than satisfactory.

My biggest issues was real-estate. By the time I had the Navigator, Toolbar, Library up, I was left with very little design and coding space. The Toolbar seems to be fixed and I have no ability to use small icons with or without text. The Library/Navigator is way too big. Debugging was pain, breakpoints, when the code stopped was at the bottom of the little code window so I was having to scroll.

Screen flicker was an issue, although the library/inspector flicker was tolerable, I was getting odd artifacts on auto-complete that I found distracting.

To be honest, I needed to concentrate on a buggy piece of my code and went back to 2012r2.1 on that size of laptop.

Now, on the other side, with the new licensing I could go back to Xojo on my Mac Mini, and running at 1680x1050, oh what a difference. The whole GUI experience was very usable and I enjoyed some “jetlagged up early” coding.

I know a few others do feel that the WIndows IDE is the poor stepchild, always sat on the mat with the Linux one, but on my laptop running at that (now determined) relatively low resolution I felt we had been kicked to the kerb with a dunces hat.

I’m hoping that XOJO 2013r2 will concentrate on real-estate for lower than 22" monitors

Pretty much the same experience here Richard. On my laptop I have very little space for design but on my desktop 23" monitor it works. I’ve noticed that if I try to remove a line of code by holding down the backspace key the cursor just sits there. I have to press the key for each character. The auto complete is also very jumpy making it a little annoying. Both my systems are Windows 7. I’ll stick with pre-xojo until these issues are fixed.

I feel your pain with a laptop with exactly the same resolution under windows 8.
I have found the properties bar can be minimized by clicking either inspector or library twice, giving some relief.
Have not worked out how to minimize the controls bar (left) yet.

One thing I find particularly annoying with Xojo is in the properties pane some properties will “set” the value on lost focus and other will only do it if you hit enter. For example if you change a controls name and click else where the name will revert to default (so you must hit enter first) and if you are experimenting with dimensions or positioning rather than just hit enter and look at the design you now have to click another property with the mouse.

I am also experiencing speed issues with multiple monitor setups 1 monitor is fine but 4 seems to require a GPU upgrade (yet to confirm).

Same problem for me here Windows 7 HP Laptop with 1366x768. I do a lot of my coding whilst travelling and screen estate is a big problem with the Xojo IDE.

Thanks. I was giving this some thought at least, but one approach for the roadmap would be the ability to take the editor full-screen like other IDE’s. That way when coding, you’re concentrating on the task in hand. IN fact, with just a menu bar, tab bar and the editing window, no other stuff in the way then that would really aid productivity on lower resolutions.

In fact, let’s add the ability hide/show navigator, toolbar (with smaller icons and/or no text etc.) & also the ability to “Save” the workspace which is also common place for IDE’s (and Video editing which I have a lot of experience. I have workspaces on hot-keys).

However let’s walk before we can run and the ability to edit full screen would be a help.

Thanks, Richard

The size of the Library palette can be mitigated (a little) by selecting the ‘gear wheel’ icon (bottom left corner of the Library palette) and choosing ‘Small icons and labels’.

The width of the Navigator and Library palettes can also be adjusted using the slider widgets in the palette headers.
The slider widgets have three vertical lines, for vertical sliders, and three horizontal lines for, well, horizontal sliders :slight_smile:

Having said all that, I still find screen real estate an issue especially on laptops.
The fixed (and massive) toolbar bugs the beejeebers outa me! :smiley:

Considering this is a new IDE I would be sure they will optimise it in future revisions.