I have to create a computed patient record in a hospital application.
Think old fashioned User Interface: many controls in the same window.
In that case, I have only two TabPanels; one with 3 tabs (8 TextFielsd/PopupMenus), the second with 2 Tabs (One TextArea in each Tab): not so many controls
I already talked about the crazi idea (use Xojo in that condition) to make a draft in a window to go from a 20 TF/PM in the window to what I wrote above (same quantity, but far less visible at the same time / stored by kinds.
Now I will talk about how hard it is to fine tune the UI (selecting 8 Controls on a TabPanel for example).
At this point, I can tell you if you create a project a year or less, you can continue to read, but this does not impact you at all. But if you are int his process
The current Window editor is far from good at this work. IMHO, it needs:
a. a Group By feature
b. a Select with a Mouse (Draw a rectangle in the window that includes all controls included in it) that omit their parent Control;
You have a TabPanel, you can select the Controls you want by Shift-Click (but boring to do with more than 3 or 4 controls, so you use the Mouse,
but you have to press it from the Window outside, then unclick all unwanted (but selected) Controls.
c. Allow the used Displayer be copied with all its included Childs (ex: a TabPanel with all Controls in each of its Tabs)
Work-around ? Copy the TabPanel alone, then Copy / Paste the Controls on one Tab at a time
Or simply do not do that. Save your project / do a back uo (or use .bas [git] kind of project) and made your massive UI changes.
You may tell me that Xojo have enough stuff on their plate to do. Yes, they have.
Remember: I use REALbasic since 20 and 1/2 years; and I trashed this kind of message many times a years in the latest years (sometimes I write the text, sometimes I refrain myself to write it and I do not send many, many messages because I think this is a wasted time (my experience).
Also, when there is no echo of what I wrote that means I certainly am alone in this idea (feature request, etc.)
Or other people already have a solution (usually a paid solution). I do not think that what I do is a far from usual kind of application other Xojo developers do.
Nota: I have nothing against the people who sold add-ons to fill holes or add new features to improve Xojo users development skills / geive them the ability to have far better applications.
What is your opinion on this subject ?