Xojo Studio Developer's Library Beta

General
1

I have began a new library for Xojo Developer’s based off the code for Real Studio Developer’s Library.
Below are the betas for Windows, Mac, and Linux.

What I’m looking for are comments, suggestions, and bug reports to ensure developers actually get something useful.
The splash screen will be different in the eventual public release…but for now it features the Xojo Logo and Xojo Developer’s Library text…

Wanting to achieve:
Easy to use interface that allows developers (Beginners/Intermediate/Advanced) access to resources and tools, help, learning, and code from a single interface.

So I will need as much input as possible…and please make any criticisms constructive! (Things to add/remove, change, etc.)

I am aware that a few portions of the library software do not work at the moment, but feel free to make them known so that they will not be overlooked.
As we are beta testing the Xojo Studio beta releases, it’s a great time to work on the community project along-side so that it can become available once Xojo is ready for public release.

The initial startup of the software takes a moment because I have not removed some portions of the code, or have them in poor places (I’m re-factoring much of the code).
Some of the references (such as the help) is still linked to realstudiodevspot.com so there will be references to Real Software…this is inevitable at the moment to prevent Xojo from being leaked to the public…

To use:

  1. Download, unzip, and open the main application.
  2. The default library will automatically be loaded upon startup, select “Snippet” from the upper right-hand combobox or from the library manager to load the default code catalog (contains full source code, code snippets, demos, etc).
  3. To use the networked libraries you will need two copies running on the same network.
  4. To use the remote libraries you will need to enter the IP (local or remote…but not a loopback (127.0.0.1)) of the machine library you wish to browse.
  5. When browsing networked or remote libraries, you can click “Save” to import the selected code/source-code/demo into your own local library (you must have a library loaded and code catalog selected).

Download (Browse the directory and select your OS version):
http://www.realdevspot.com/xojolibrary/

2

To be honest I find the GUI a real mess and not very user friendly/intuitive.
Also, the colors used for tabs and buttons are a bit … hmm … ‘badly chosen’. Reminded me of a kids Colori book. :slight_smile:
My advice is to take a close look at comparable apps (both Windows and OS X). Try to make a OS uniform GUI that makes sense.

BTW no offence meant though!

3

Is on agenda :-)[quote=2178:@Christophe De Vocht]To be honest I find the GUI a real mess and not very user friendly/intuitive.
Also, the colors used for tabs and buttons are a bit … hmm … ‘badly chosen’. Reminded me of a kids Colori book. :slight_smile:
My advice is to take a close look at comparable apps (both Windows and OS X). Try to make a OS uniform GUI that makes sense.

BTW no offence meant though![/quote]

Color scheme has been on agenda…many have been removed already and have started migrating the colors to gradient greys/blacks :slight_smile: The grey bars you now see use to be a blueish code (had lines of code and was abstract)…Thanks for the input…any ideas about simplifying the GUI? Mac apps and windows apps are far different…and in my experience Mac users don’t like windows-feel apps and vice-versa…so how to appeal to everyone…(at least a majority) Open to any and all input… Unfortunately when I first designed the software my goal wasn’t “appeal”…moreso to “fit as many features in at once” just to get something out…especially for people who were discouraged with Real Studio and were wanting to migrate to another language because “code and resources were hard to find.” (As most of them said…“if I have to Google or search forums, its not for me”) So many people have sent thanks for the original software…but yes, it is an absolute congealmemt of everything. I had had a few developers helping redesign the interface…but that actually made it the mess it is today…so ive decided to keep “one hand in the pot” for now. Thanks for the input and suggestions…no offense taken…rather appreciation…thank you :slight_smile:

4

[quote=2178:@Christophe De Vocht]To be honest I find the GUI a real mess and not very user friendly/intuitive.
Also, the colors used for tabs and buttons are a bit … hmm … ‘badly chosen’. Reminded me of a kids Colori book. :slight_smile:
My advice is to take a close look at comparable apps (both Windows and OS X). Try to make a OS uniform GUI that makes sense.

BTW no offence meant though![/quote]

Take a look at the new interface (still designing some of the custom control replacements for native RS/Xojo controls)… definitely need as much input as possible…I have updated the download link at the beginning of this conversation with the new ‘pre-pre-beta’ of the library. Most of the library is going to change at this point…I just need feedback to get it upto par on appearance and arrangement of items for best ease-of-use and perhaps what its lacking for developers. (beginner/intermediate/professionals) …I guess this is moreso of a developer’s “knowledgebase” than a mere library…

5

Hi Matthew
Here’s some random thoughts:
I’d say the interface could be tamed a lot more - there’s a lot going on and most of it could be hidden until required. For example, the Library Manager section should be hidden in a Preference as it doesn’t seem likely that users would change libraries on a regular basis. In fact, the whole Dashboard section seems to take away from the main purpose of the app, which is the Code Library, especially as the Dashboard is what is immediately visible on first launch.

In the Code Library, the left hand pane should be hidden by default - perhaps you could have a Hide/Show button, similar to OS X Mail’s Mailbox button.

Colors and font usage could be tamed - there seems lots of font sizes in various areas and the dark grey color that is used in various places is too, well, dark.

The most useful item for me in such a library would be controls but I see now way of filtering controls at the moment.

Hope that helps.

6

[quote=3072:@Gavin Smith]Hi Matthew
Here’s some random thoughts:
I’d say the interface could be tamed a lot more - there’s a lot going on and most of it could be hidden until required. For example, the Library Manager section should be hidden in a Preference as it doesn’t seem likely that users would change libraries on a regular basis. In fact, the whole Dashboard section seems to take away from the main purpose of the app, which is the Code Library, especially as the Dashboard is what is immediately visible on first launch.

In the Code Library, the left hand pane should be hidden by default - perhaps you could have a Hide/Show button, similar to OS X Mail’s Mailbox button.

Colors and font usage could be tamed - there seems lots of font sizes in various areas and the dark grey color that is used in various places is too, well, dark.

The most useful item for me in such a library would be controls but I see now way of filtering controls at the moment.

Hope that helps.[/quote]

Awesome thanks :slight_smile: When you say “filter controls” do you mean search for custom designed controls in the library? At the moment for controls, I’ve just been typing “control” or “custom controls” in the search field…sorry for my lack of understanding…are you suggesting to add a “code classification” filter? (ie, sound, custom control, client/server, etc)? Some items may have multiple classifications…I had originally thought about adding such a filter but decided to leave it out as some items may be ommited that are pertinent to a user’s search…which is why I left searching as a “natural speech” algorithm finding and ranking search results by keywords used…but perhaps I could work in some conditional items into the search algorithm to still show pertinent search items that don’t necessarily fit the search filter100% but may be “valuable”

7

Perhaps items could have tags such as “Control”, “Graphics”, “RBScript (XojoScript?)” attached to them. When an item is added to the library, it could be tagged with one or more tags. In the Code Library, I’d change the “All Code” popup menu to “All Platforms” for clarity and add a second popup menu to filter by tag.

8

Thanks for the clarification and will do! I just had a great idea for a custom tag control…I’ll be developing away today :slight_smile: let me know if you have any other suggestions! much appreciated.

9

I have updated the “pre-pre-beta” with some new custom controls and given it more of a “Xojo” look, and implemented most of the previous suggestions. Let me know what you all think and continue with the suggestions. I’m currently working on the tagging filters, styledtext buttons for item descriptions, and adding tabbed browsing for the built-in reference browser. Now if only we could run/build with the Xojo beta and SQLite databases…I would like to see how it runs. :slight_smile:

The download link for Windows/Linux/Mac is still the same:
Download (Browse the directory and select your OS version):
http://www.realdevspot.com/xojolibrary/

10

Only have 13,148 more items to add to the library as well :slight_smile:

11

Updated download link again with new compilation…

-security center has been migrated to a window
-completed StyledText in Descriptions (working on toggles on/off)
-Sidebar fixed to auto-hide and shows available libraries (have to add lock/unlock icons and row buttons with context menus)
-Updated a number of source codes to work in Xojo 2013r1(will fix the rest and add screenshots for all sources)
-Tag-cloud is almost complete (it’s there but Visible=false)

To dos:
-Finish Template Manager
-Finish Projects manager (Recent Projects for Mac/Linux) and add scan for projects feature with “backup” for revisioning (working on ‘view-changes’ between code versions…Version Control coded in Xojo :-)) for XVCP projects
-Add zip-package viewer/editor for packaging projects into a single package (imports resources such as images, etc to single package with unpack script)…might be used for plugin packaging/management at a later time
-Finish Conversion of Desktop code to WebControl code and vice-versa (XML format projects) (GREAT FOR CANVAS TO WEBCANVAS CONTROL CONVERSION!!!)
-Finish C/C++ to Xojo, .Net to Xojo, Java to Xojo, and LiveCode to Xojo converter (plus update the VB6 to Xojo converter with new functions/changes to previous ie databases)

http://www.realdevspot.com/xojolibrary

12

Hi Matthew, thank you for your hard work on this great tool!

I just found an incompatibility that I wanted to let you know about. I don’t know if it’s on my side something is wrong, but perhaps someone can confirm whether this is indeed an incompatibility or not.

When the app is placed on an AFP-share (Apple Filing Protocol) on my Synology NAS, I get a NilObjectException (see bug report below), but when moving the app to my desktop, everything launches fine.

I placed the app in:

afp://192.168.1.60/home/Programming/Xojo/Tools/XojoDevLib_Mac/Xojo Developer's Library.app

…and the FolderItem should handle this path correctly, right?. To make sure I moved it to the root of /home/ but got the same error.

Anyways, after moving it to my harddrive everything works great. But should you get bug-reports regarding NilObjectExceptions, you might want to check if the user has the app on a share.

If others or you can confirm, that it does indeed work on an AFP-share, I must have some error in my network setup or on the NAS, and I will investigate further. If you want other logs or System Profiler reports, don’t hesitate to ask.

My system is a 2013 MacBook Pro (15" Retina) with 8 GB RAM and 250 GB SSD HD, accessing a Synology DS213+ connected to a Netgear switch via Gigabit Ethernet. The MacBook accesses this over Wi-Fi via my DSL router.

Here is the bug report:

[code]Error NilObjectException occured.

System Information:
Operating System Mac OSX 10.9.2
Version 4.1.0
Build Date 2013-11-30 12:21:37

Call Stack:
Sub classINI_FILE.Constructor( FolderItem )
Sub INI.OpenINI( string )
Sub winAgreement.winAgreement.Event_Open( winAgreement.winAgreement )
Sub Window.Constructor()
Function winAgreement.winAgreement() as winAgreement.winAgreement
Sub REALbasic._RunFrameworkInitialization()[/code]

13

The link: http://www.realdevspot.com/xojolibrary/

goes to MacRumors (with FireFox) and ISP unable to find page (Safari).

Is it my computer ?

14

Hi again Matthew,

I just wanted to let you know about an error on your website, regarding the download links for the Dev Library.

On your front page at http://www.xojodevspot.com/news.php the download links in the sidebar, for Windows, Mac and Linux (the arrows) all work. They look like this:

http://www.xojodevspot.com/request.php?90

However on your other pages - Content, Tutorials and so on - the links go to places like this:

http://www.xojodevspot.com/applications/content/request.php?90

…which does not compute :slight_smile:

Thought you should know, since it would be a shame if people didn’t download this great resource, because of a few bad links :slight_smile:

Cheers,
Thomas

15

[quote=72852:@Emile Schwarz]The link: http://www.realdevspot.com/xojolibrary/

goes to MacRumors (with FireFox) and ISP unable to find page (Safari).

Is it my computer ?[/quote]

Hi Emile, the link goes nowhere on my computer, but the correct address is this one (ever since Real Studio became Xojo)

http://www.xojodevspot.com/news.php

Cheers,
Thomas :slight_smile:

16

Thanks Thomas. It works now.

17

Happy to help my friend :slight_smile: