[quote=26399:@Norman Palardy]
And there were a couple spots along the 15+ year journey where I did not update right away - 2005 was actually one of those as the change from the old IDE to that one (which you have in 2012 and earlier) was painful.[/quote]
For me it’s been 12+ years now and I did update from 5.5.5 (which i though was one of the most stable, least buggy versions ever!) to 2005.
The bugs in 2005 were terrible and it was panful for sure! in terms of BUGGINESS, Xojo is much better.
Still I pretty much stayed current from V3 all the way to 012R1.2 and then had gap.
I got excited about and had high expectations for the new IDE so I renewed in Feb to be part of the beta.
Thank you for your long answer. I am sorry, but I do not really understand the trouble. That was the reason why I was asking for a drawing vs text explanation.
Note that I may need holidays before understanding the concern.
My last try with the IDE ‘navigation’ was to open some windows in Tab (the Tab horizontal bar) and that was nice (I do not know if these stays after a quit / launch).
The more I think at that, the more I think two artwork are needed:
a. one that explain what is wrong (for the 80 people [and more] who think so)
b. a proposal (or more) on how to improve it - what you think that can be better -; think at that like a proposal for a better ‘navigation’.
Good to hear ! It is very clear the Xojo Inc people are now listening to all the ‘complains’ written here. To be honest, that wasn’t the case some years ago.
But that’s why I (and many others) still believe strongly in Xojo !
[quote=26393:@Norman Palardy]And yes the item is #2
80 respondents is a small (very small) but vocal minority out of ALL license holders.
Even the threads on the forums have involved a minority(there are 2300+ accounts) so 80 is roughly 4-5% of all users on the forums (which is still only a portion of all license holders)
[/quote]
I’s hard to tell with the points thing… could you let us know how many individuals have signed onto the feature request?
While most license holder are silent, aren’t the majority always silent no matter what, good or bad?
Ernie and Norman, that was 80+ comments on a third party blog. Some were neutral, some were just questions. You can’t take that number and extrapolate it into the number of people you that don’t like the Navigator or figure out the percentage of the user forums that are upset. It just points out that it is a hot-button topic. I’d bet that there are a lot more than 80 users that are having serious problems with the Navigator. Incidentally, the blog discussion is at 93 now.
This is a very true statement. It has been shown that when an issue is “discussed” in an open forum, a percentage of people will voice their opinion (positive or negative)… when given a means to acknowleged that opinion, you get two things… 1) a much smaller percentage of people will post an acknowlegement (ie. FEEDBACK) becuase “its too much trouble, and what good does it do” mentality… 2) only those with a negative feedback will respond.
So by inferring that 4 to 5% of the users responded DOE NOT also imply the 95-96% are satisfied… I am willing to bet if you could create a FORUM POLL and ask “How satisified are you with the new IDE/Navigtator” you will find (my opinion) 50% will say no.
But the differnces is the POLL ASKS… with Feedback you have to TELL… and psyhcologically there is a huge difference.
[quote=26423:@Christophe De Vocht]Good to hear ! It is very clear the Xojo Inc people are now listening to all the ‘complains’ written here. To be honest, that wasn’t the case some years ago.
[/quote]
They have stated in the forums since before the 2013r1 release that they planned to have a couple “more rapid” releases that would address a bunch of known, fixable issues with the IDE. The bout of complaining has done about zero to alter their course one way or another. It most certainly didn’t change any minds on what Bob’s feature request actually asked for.
What I have seen since the early alphas is a generally good UI idea with a bunch of implementation issues steadily iron out the implementation issues. The lost in the navigator problem will persist for people that don’t step back and develop a little bit different approach with this tool than they used with Real Studio. But that’s mostly a training issue, and you’ll notice that they’re doing a whole bunch of webinars now. Talk about a great venue to see how “experts” use the IDE and even ask about some of the nuances.
I would be open-minded and would want to see a webinar using a really big project, and show us some methodologies (use of Tabs, how you find things that are several layers deep, how to effectively get around in the Navigator, etc…) that showcases how experienced Xojo coders avoid the problems that a lot of users are complaining about (excessive clicking, scrolling and searching, and in general getting lost in the Navigator).
I suspect that the majority of professional users (particularly those like me with large, complex projects) will dislike the new IDE. I used the new IDE to convert a number of smaller projects to Cocoa (which now works well). I found the new IDE to be tolerable, if irritating in many, many ways.
When I tried to use the new IDE with a bigger project (close to 1000 classes, etc.), it was utterly horrible, and navigation was a nightmare. Going back to 2011r3 was like drinking Chateau Latour after a week of Two Buck Chuck.
[quote=26393:@Norman Palardy]Yes there are 80 responses to bob post - there’s no doubt there
And yes the item is #2
80 respondents is a small (very small) but vocal minority out of ALL license holders.
Even the threads on the forums have involved a minority(there are 2300+ accounts) so 80 is roughly 4-5% of all users on the forums (which is still only a portion of all license holders)
That doesn’t mean we’ll just ignore this - but it also doesn’t make this an “OMG drop everything” kind of priority.
We’ve made some fixes for R3 and we’re contemplating some more for other future releases.[/quote]
Does your comments represent the attitude at Xojo about this problem? Your response here seems to indicate an indifference to the severity of the problem and that you guys think you got it right with navigator design and everyone else is wrong. You guys need a fire lit under you and this issue should be an “OMG” issue for Xojo. People have already voted with their pocket books and your next release will speak loudly to those who are waiting to see how Xojo will respond. Frankly, your response here in this forum is clueless. What good can come from rationalizing away the highly negative response to the design of the navigator? Can anyone give you a bigger shotgun to shoot yourself in the foot with?
It honestly isn’t “complaint driven”. We use the IDE all day every day 8 days a week (sometimes feels like 9)
If you think we’re not aware of the issues then you’ve overlooked that.
For R1 it was time to get it out in the wild - for many reasons.
R2 was a quick turn around to get a lot of serious bugs fixed - crashes , assertions, and a few things that were related to the IDE and some overall UI issues - but it didn’t attempt to address some of the bigger issues.
It was less than half the normal 90 day cycle yet still had > 100 fixes.
R3 has been in the works since R2 went beta (more or less) and should address a bunch more issues.
We’re all working very hard to improve things as fast as we can without killing ourselves.
[quote=26447:@Karen Atkocius]I’s hard to tell with the points thing… could you let us know how many individuals have signed onto the feature request?
[/quote]
72
I think they deserve an honest shot and some ample time to address the issues. I agree with Norman, I would find it impossible that they aren’t at least aware of the complaints. But Brendan is right, it is somewhat unclear what Xojo thinks about the Navigation issues as a whole. We know a bunch of users have complained. We know Xojo engineers have been using it for quite a while build the next rev of Xojo. We do know that a prominent member of the community had a conference call with the CEO to mainly discuss this issue. We do know the feedback item shot to #2 in a matter of days.
What is unclear to me is if Xojo truly feels it is a problem. Or do they think they can tinker with it enough that it will satisfy the complaints. I guess all we can do now is wait and see what they produce, the issue has been made abundantly clear in a number of places.
And note to Norman. Most of us are aware of the extraordinary effort you guys have made. Whether we agree or not with some of the design decisions, it is not for lack of effort on your part that we think some issues need to be addressed.
It does not need 1.000 classes to become unusable. The getting lost effect begins already with > 50 objects.
It is definitely unusable for my daily work.
I stopped all activity on the new IDE.
All projects will stay on RB 2012 which is rather reliable and still highly productive.
New projects will be solved with other cross platform tools, wherever possible.
I really hope, that Xojo Inc will fix this issue before my license runs out at the end of this year.
It also would be nice to hear an official statement on the current situation from Xojo Inc’s side.
[quote=26451:@Dave S]
So by inferring that 4 to 5% of the users responded DOE NOT also imply the 95-96% are satisfied… [/quote]
You’ll note I never said anything like 95% are satisfied
I just noted that of all registered uses we have 4-5% have signed on to either bobs blog post OR the feedback case
Similar to availing yourself to seeing how a change in workflow might help your IDE experience, you might re-read Norman’s previous three posts to avail yourself to their thinking. It could not be clearer. They are staying the course with the design, aware of implementation issues, and have been working on them long before everyone put on their drama face. And nowhere did he say they were tinkering to satisfy complaints.
Do you honestly believe we don’t see or experience the problem ?
WE DO use the IDE all ay every day on a project that is quite sizable. Yes the navigation is an issue.
But fix navigation issues or crashes & assertions ?
We chose to fix the assertions & crashes first (thats a big chunk of what got fixed in R2 along with some other bugs)
[quote=26475:@Norman Palardy]You’ll note I never said anything like 95% are satisfied
I just noted that of all registered uses we have 4-5% have signed on to either bobs blog post OR the feedback case
The majority are silent
[/quote]
What is the end purpose what you are saying? It comes across as a rationalization on Xojo’s part. In technical terms you are “poo poo-ing” the feedback. There is an old saying, “for every rat you see, there are 50 you don’t see.” So from a statistical point of view, is this a valid sampling? I think the answer to that question is yes.
Frankly, this isn’t an opinion survey, but users are expressing dissatisfaction with the design and that it is having an impact on their productivity. It doesn’t take a x-ray vision to figure that out.
