[quote=26511:@Norman Palardy]Find it once & open it in a tab like in the old IDE ?
I think the big issue here is that once you do this ANY tab CAN navigate anywhere - thats because locked tabs are not working as intended.
If they were they’d behave more like the old IDE where a tab focused on one item and could not be moved to focus on something else.
No ?
[/quote]
Not for me… Sure tabs locking as intended would help… but not enough IMO.
I don’t mean to be jumping on you, but I have to say typing in the search field to routinely navigate is not something that works well for the way i think and work.
The navigator simply has too much stuff available at one time which makes mentally processing it difficult. It makes using the IDE for me more work.
We all think differently and have different work styles… This new design feels like it is less accommodating of that.
This is it in a nutshell, thank you Karen. The sheer number of items in the Navigator make it difficult to get my mind around where things are, but also the constant typing to search for items, the extra clicking and scrolling (which is a pain trying to grab that skinny scroll bar). It all just adds up to an unpleasant experience.
What are the odds of Paul L. doing a webinar on ways to navigate a big project? Put all of these tips and tricks into one concise and visual location so that when people run into this issue they have a place to get some ideas on how to make it workable? The current webinars that I have seen are pretty small projects where the Navigator is not really an issue.
[quote=26515:@Norman Palardy]R2 fixed mostly outright crashes & project corruption bugs first since we figured NOT actually wrecking peoples projects was a tad more important that the navigation (which can be frustrating but doesn’t wreck your project)
If you’d like me to leave in the project corrupting ones I’ll special case it and leave those in for you and fix them for everyone else.
Sound good to you ?[/quote]
Norman, RS/Xojo has always had bug/crash fixing–this goes to Xojo’s quality assurance, but that is a completely different discussion. What you don’t get is you are out on a public forum poo-pooing negative results by trying to make it seem they are not that important of an issue. The real question is what Xojo thinks of the navigator design and it is clear you guys thought it was a good design and continue to think so since you blew past the warning signs all along the way. So those reading this now have a grasp of what Xojo thinks of the navigator. This will relate to the effort and changes you are willing to make to the navigator design in the future. You have proved my assertions that Xojo thinks the scalability issue is not that big of a problem. Xojo wants time and patience in fixing this, OK you have that. But you are not certainly making your case for that request with your comments as an official employee of Xojo.
Being antagonistic with customers in defending the navigator design is, no steps forward and two steps back.
I can’t really compare the 2012 vs 2013 because I never used it enough before. My current project is growing but I organise it using a lot of folders - it seems manageable at the moment. I can imagine a really big project could be difficult to navigate around inside but then that is what happens with big projects. Xojo seem to be able to manage the Xojo code though.
Do you think it could be made better by introducing some extra UI so that for example when you select a class in the navigator you get a drop list of methods/properties/constants etc. Xcode a similar navigator but is not hindered by breaking up each class (file) into methods/properties/etc. So maybe Case #7173 - Provide ‘All Code’ view in IDE would help too.
I’m taking a long term view of view, and not making it a weekend campaign. As I talk with my customers, I’ll make sure they’re aware of it, but won’t be blasting my email list. You can all do what you like with it :-).
I did because RS/Xojo is so far behind in other deliverables like LLVM, 64-bit, preemptive threading, libraries etc. But I do have several apps written in RS/Xojo that need to be maintained until I can port them to Xcode.
The first time I started Xojo, my immediate reaction was “whoa” (in the negative sense). I then said to myself, “Wait a minute, let’s read the manual and explore what they are trying to do.” It didn’t take long to discover the bugs everyone else was taking about, but I thought if they fixed all those bugs, what was left–the scalability issue. Then my reaction was, “I can’t believe they designed this” (again in the negative sense). I have been around RS/Xojo since 4.0 and it befuddles me that with the success they had with the RS IDE, they threw it out the window and went for such “speculative” design change. From a user comfort level, I look at using Xojo as “grit your teeth and bare it” experience. From a business point of view, the Xojo IDE is a huge productivity drain. In this conversation I am saying they need a fire lit under them to turn this around and not just roll it out piecemeal over the next year-plus. If they drag their feet or are unwilling to make the necessary changes, they will lose more customers. When you have feature in the IDE that drives people to reconsider their renewals, you have a serious problem.
I wonder why Xojo inc. have not yet sent out a survey to get a more clear answer instead of guessing what users like or dislike the new Xojo IDE from this forum.
Jeez - I’m not happy with the Navigator and have stated it here a few times. I also said (like many on this thread) that I’ll try and be patient and see what comes of the next few releases. Norman is trying to throw a bone here and everyone wants to rip him a new !@hole. Take a breath and at least wait for the next release before continuing this constant attack. They hear us, they care. Let’s see what comes of it.
Think twice before you post another negative comment. I wish I had a nickel for every “pile on” post I’ve deleted. After r3 comes out at least our comments will reflect the efforts put in by Xojo to address the issues raised. At this point, it just feels like everyone is kicking the guy who is down.
That wording sounds like I’m trying to pin “blame” on Geoff. Not at all. There’s no blame to be pinned. Very early in the process I saw potential problems, but Geoff and I’s discussion left the design as-is. It wasn’t an “I was right, Geoff was wrong” situation at all. The navigator had and still has my full support. It just didn’t turn out how I planned, and I thought we should have put some more R&D into the code contents situation.
I think it is dangerous to discuss/post internals when you are either employed by or contracted to a company. When you are with that company you act as part of a team for that company. I can understand why you may want to state that you felt it could have been better but when the team decision is made you all get behind it and live with the consequences.
That said, this conversation has 97 replies so there must be some issues to resolve and I am sure that Xojo are aware of them. Whatever solution(s) they come up with will please some and upset others, so maybe it would help if we could just highlight/identify the key issues in enough detail. I would like to see the currently ranking 8th - Case #7173 - Provide ‘All Code’ view in IDE, that would make Xojo very similar to Xcode and I can’t imagine there are many people trying to tear up Apple for Xcode (it would also make it very similar to VS). Why not raise or vote for the cases that you feel are relevant?
[quote=26371:@Robert Birge]My solution to dealing with Xojo slowness and behavior patterns is to develop my applications using 2012R2.1, debug them in 2013R2.1 and when they work open them in Xojo so I can make a cocoa version. This works for all of my applications except for the one using Xojoscript, which is an improvement on RBScript. These I must work in Xojo, which slows productivity significantly still, even though I have put at least 20 hours into Xojo development. Perhaps I am a slow learner, but I think most of the problem is with Xojo.
While I join in all the complaints about workflow and speed in the Xojo IDE, Xojo is finally creating cocoa applications which run properly. On the other hand, Xojo generates Windows programs that are much less stable than those generated in 2012R2.1. I have been forced to generate all my Windows apps using RB. Xojo and Windows needs serious attention. Some of my Windows apps that run just fine under 2012R2.1 crash without usefull feedback on Xojo. I cannot file any useful feedback when the IDE simply returns from a run without doing anything at all, as if nothing happened. This is quite common for my Windows apps.[/quote]
I started working on an update of our product (a point release due in October), and decided Xojo was going to be the target compiler. Unfortunately, with the current release, I can’t even get a stable version of our product (it runs on Windows). I can’t figure out why its crashing during compiles, and I have no idea where to start… But I have to say, going back and forth between the two IDE’s now, Its become clear to me the team needs to:
Fix the navigator, go back to Tabs…
Focus issues are really a problem (someone earlier mentioned this)
Improve the Windows version and kill some of the crashes I’m seeing…
Like most things, this stuff takes time. I’m confident that the team will get things fixed.
