[Laszlo-user] new visual IDE

[David Temkin]

Rich,

Number 1 - understood and agreed
Number 2 -- where specifically is the learning curve steep? I'd like  
to improve this over time, and it would be helpful to understand what  
you see as the roadblock. (which aspects of the development process,  
language, or APIs were the most challenging when you hit them).

- D.


On Nov 16, 2007, at 10:11 AM, Rich Christiansen wrote:

> By the way, I'm ecstatic to hear that you're developing a new IDE.   
> I personally feel there are two things keeping Laszlo from full- 
> scale adoption:
>
> 1. Poor tool support
> 2. Steep learning curve
>
> Your IDE should help greatly with the first issue.  I'm not sure how  
> to address the second issue.  Perhaps just improved documentation?
>
> Anyway, if we can do anything to help (e.g. beta testing), please  
> let us know. :)
> -Rich
>
> Anze Cesar wrote:
>>
>> Will the IDE be open source?
>>
>> I suppose it's written in Java. Do you ever plan to make Eclipse  
>> plugin?
>>
>> On Nov 16, 2007 2:26 PM, bjdevlin <  
>> bdnabble at knowledgeworks.plus.com> wrote:
>>
>> Hi folks,
>>
>> I'm fairly new to Laszlo, and don't like the (lack of) options for
>> developing OL apps.  I've looked at several tools to see how they  
>> can enable
>> the development of OL apps (XML editors such as Oxygen and  
>> XmlBuddy, and
>> IDEs such as Emacs, NetBeans, and XCode).  None of these tools  
>> seemed to me
>> to offer much assistance.  Given the choice of working with poor  
>> IDE support
>> in Laszlo or using Flex, I decided to write my own IDE.
>>
>> The IDE will be cross-platform, and includes
>>
>> 1) a LZX source XML editor with outlining, automatic indentation and
>> colorization, context-sensitive element/attribute suggestions, and
>> pre-compilation validation warnings
>> 2) a visual layout builder displaying the component relationships  
>> without
>> having to compile to SWF, with drag and drop layout, and a property
>> inspector for each component
>> 3) an in-built web-browser to display the compiled-rendered  
>> application
>> 4) VCS integration
>>
>> Parts 1 and 2 are complete.  Part 3 at the moment is only a wireframe
>> representation of the layout, and is not editable.  No work has  
>> started on
>> part 4.
>>
>> However, according to this bug-report
>> [http://www.openlaszlo.org/jira/browse/LPP-2300] the official OL  
>> DTD has
>> been out of date for at least 18 months (it represents Laszlo at  
>> version
>> 2.1.2).  This is going to limit the usefulness of the IDE, since  
>> probably a
>> significant number of elements are going to fail validation within  
>> the IDE
>> and are not going to be found as options during code-completion.    
>> In fact,
>> since it is the DTD that drives the property palettes, if an  
>> element is not
>> listed in the DTD there will not be a property inspector for it.
>>
>> I don't know if voting for OL bugs has any effect, but I know of  
>> other
>> organizations with open bug-reporting who do respond to votes on  
>> bugs.  If
>> you would like to see a new IDE for OL, please vote for the above  
>> bug.
>> Indeed, I'm not alone in needing this updated DTD: several people  
>> have
>> posted in the forum asking for an updated DTD
>> (http://forum.openlaszlo.org/showthread.php?p=29210#post29210 and
>> http://forum.openlaszlo.org/showthread.php?p=29506).
>>
>> Apologies if this is the wrong forum in which to raise something  
>> like this.
>> Also, if there is already work underway on updating the DTD, then my
>> apologies for complaining about the currently outdated DTD.   Also,  
>> I sent
>> this message via nabble.com, and inadvertendly sent an earlier  
>> version.
>> Luckily, since I hadn't yet subscribed to the list it looks like that
>> message did not appear.  My apologies if it does subsequently  
>> appear - I
>> didn't mean to spam the list on this issue.
>>
>> Bernard
>> --
>> View this message in context: http://www.nabble.com/new-visual-IDE-tf4821075.html#a13792659
>> Sent from the OpenLaszlo - User mailing list archive at Nabble.com.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> -- 
>> lp,
>> Anže