New BLIde beta available
BlitzMax Forums/BlitzMax Programming/New BLIde beta available
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| There's a new BLIde beta version available for testers. This version has a lot of fixes, and some improvements over the current version 0.7.52. the most interesting features: -file sub-format is ANSI (by default) and only saves in unicode when the source code has spetial characters that are not supported by ANSI subformat. -BLIde can remember the last open application and opened TABS when it is restarted -Fixed a bug when the code had cyclic dependant declaration of classes -Better intellisense algorithm -Support for the keyword Super in autolists -A new simple layout mode, that saves a lot of resources and coding space. -Several bugs have been fixed in the 'Define editor colors and look' dialog -Several bugs have been fixed in the 'Report a Bug' dialog -Autolist doesn't override text, when user writes something out of the list, and press space. -Some focus bugs on autolist have been solved -Better performance and a lot of things I can't remeber now :D. If you're interested in beta-testing this new BLIde version, please, send a email to supermanel*at*menta*dot*net Thanks |
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| I'm not going to volunteer this time. As I was rubbish at beta testing last time. But I would say to everyone, even if you have tried an earler version of BLide, give it another go. Because it makes Bmax a dream to use. Keep up the good work ziggy |
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| Many thanks H&K. :D |
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| I very much like the resemblence of BlIDE to VS2003.NET. All of my dayly work is done in c# with VS2003 (recently, transistioning to VS2005). Everyone who wanna take a bash at M$ should eat their words coz i think VS2030 quite a good dev environment. The same can be said for BLide.. if your still using the default Blitzmax IDE then your missing out on some great features of BLide. DUmp that old MaxIDE and get BLide now ;). |
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| I used BlIDE for a while, but I just cant get used to the way the project manager works. It's very unintuitive and it really started to annoy me. mostly the way it ignores subdirectories in my project-code directory. Since it seems blide is going the Visual Studio wat, I hope this can be made to work more like the VS project manager. I would love to give it another go when that happens, cos the rest of the IDE was very nice to work with. for now i'll stick to the default Max IDE. |
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| @Jim T: The way the project manager works on BLIde, is based in the way BlitzMax handles imports, includes, etc. That was the best way to see all files relationship in a simple tree. Visual Studio handles all files directly from the project file, but there's no such project file in blitzmax, just included and imported files in other files... so, BLIde has to do it also this way... Maybe a file explorer, could make it easier for people very familiar to the VS style. |
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| Cant you just have it create a project file? Just create a .bmx file that adds Include statements for every single .bmx file in the project directory and all it's sub directories, as well as any sourcefiles manually added by the user. That way the user does not have to worry about including them by himself, and you have everything neatly packed into 1 file. Example code directory %root%/game.bmx %root%/graphics/window.bmx %root%/graphics/texture.bmx %root%/graphics/mesh.bmx %root%/graphics/color.bmx %root%/graphics/rectangle.bmx %root%/graphics/gl/glwindow.bmx %root%/graphics/gl/gltexture.bmx %root%/graphics/gl/glmesh.bmx %root%/graphics/dx/dxwindow.bmx %root%/graphics/dx/dxtexture.bmx %root%/graphics/dx/dxmesh.bmx %root%/data/database.bmx then when I create a new project for this in BlIDE, it automaticly generates a .bmx file for all this which is also set as the Build File. myproject.bmx (build file) '// optional Strict mode SuperStrict '// optional Framework Framework BRL.GLMax2D '// Optional Imports Import BRL.BmpLoader Import BRL.TGALoader Import PUB.FreeJoy '// Included project source files include "game.bmx" include "graphics/window.bmx" include "graphics/texture.bmx" include "graphics/mesh.bmx" include "graphics/color.bmx" include "graphics/rectangle.bmx" include "graphics/gl/glwindow.bmx" include "graphics/gl/gltexture.bmx" include "graphics/gl/glmesh.bmx" include "graphics/dx/dxwindow.bmx" include "graphics/dx/dxtexture.bmx" include "graphics/dx/dxmesh.bmx" include "data/database.bmx" you could even make it user-configurable, so he can choose what kind of strict mode is being used. And a user-configurable Framework directive and Imports. Ideally, you could set a default set of Import/Framework directives that are used in every new project, enless the user explicitly states otherwise. |
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| Yes, but the compiler won't understand it |
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| why not? This project business is only for the IDE/Project Manager internal workings. The compiler does not need to see any of it. You know the internal structure of the files, as you allready pass them to the compiler now. The way it is presented to the user and the way the bmx compiler receives it are 2 entirely different things :) My example above is the same way Visual Studio works. The C# compiler does not care about subdirectories and imports and what not. It just wants a set of filenames to compile. VS extrapolates that list of files from the project file and passes it to csc.exe as required, with appropriate compiler directives and options. |
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| making the project generate a bmx file with al imports... looks good. I'll take in consideration for previous versions. :D |
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| cool :) The whole projectfile setup can be combined with the existing Project Settings, for as far as they exist. Makes for a nice, centralized place to manage everything you can possible manage for a project. I can think of a few other things which would be nice to add, but they are merely icing on the cake. What language are you writing it in, btw? |
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| BLIde has been written in Visual Basic (The main layout) C# the parser and sysntax engine, and some little parts in BlitzMax. The PlugIn Engine has been written in a mixture of Visual Basic and BlitzMax |
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| Yeah that's all swell and all ziggy, but where's the mac version? ;) |
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| Ziggy a question. Im useing 0.7.52, and the other day when I started it, the type completion thing, (The one were you press : and all the types appear), that. Anyway, none of the modual types appeared, just the base types (Int long etc), and my types. This was brilliant. How do I make it so that this happens all the time. I wasnt using framework or anything. It was the first use of .52, [Cos of my .net2 thing], and I assumed it was the new default that you had chossen, and really liked it. Since then its gone back to the old way, with the massive list of types. And I dont know how to change it back |
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| H&K: I'm sorry to say that It was a problem with your module caché that was automaticaly fixed when BLIde was restarted. |
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| You could un fix it for me though couldnt you? If I point to a different module path. Whould that do it? |
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| I can't seem to find a way to get the code window any bigger with the new beta. It just sits there in the middle of the screen with space all around it, but can't be dragged or resized to fit the space. Surely if I'm going to turn off the extra panels it's because I want a bigger code window? Also, Restore Complete Layout doesn't ( restore the complete layout. ) It just leaves me with a loney code window in the middle of the screen and no other panels open at all. I have to manually open the panels. I actually chose complete as my default when installing and none of the panels were there when it first opened either, so it's nothing I've changed. EDIT: In fact, "Restore Complete Layout" actually closes and hides the panels if I have them opened. |
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| @Gabriel: Did you make a fresh installation of the new version? and, does this happen after a BLIde restart? Anyone else having this issue? have you tried the BLIde recover utility to see if it fixes this issue? |
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| Yes, it was a fresh installation. I uninstalled the old version, deleted the folder and then the new used a different folder anyway. So unless there's anything in the registry which wasn't deleted.. I just tried restarting the IDE and it didn't happen again. So I'm not sure what was happening before, but it's not happening any more. Sorry I can't be any more specific, but if it happens again, I'll see if I can pinpoint anything which I was doing that may have caused it. |
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| It won't happen again, it was a little minor bug with a DLL update. the panels state was saved in a xml file, and there was a wrong formating at first BLIde run. it has been fixed, You shouldn't have this bug again any more. |
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| I'm very impressed with Blide. One little annoyance is moving through the text using Ctrl+Cursor Keys. If the cursor is at the end of a line and I press Ctrl+Left the cursor doesn't move. I have to press Left, followed by Ctrl+Left. Not major, i know but i'm in the habit of skipping through lines word by word. :) Oh, and the find/replace system is very awkward. It would be nice if it remembered the last word you search for. Also it would be nice to be able to highlight a word in the editor, press Ctrl+F and the highlighted word appears in the find box. Annnd, i might be missing something here but if you search for a word that appears several times on the same line it only finds the first one. Sorting these issues would make me very happy. I would even donate again! :D |
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| @siread: the Find & Replace dialog needs some extra work, as soon as I have time to improve it, I will. It is one of the parts that needs more work. The Ctrl+Left bug is something I'm working on. Thanks for your possitive feedback :D |
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| Ziggy, How goes the beta? I hope the console printing is fixed? I'm really having a lot of issues debugging because the console doesn't necessary display the text because of some kind of cacheing. Thanks |
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| @Sean: I think I've fixed it, but I would like to know if you coud give me some more details about this console issue. or any bmx sample that reproduces that. |
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| Ziggy, Generally, when I'm debugging something, I just use a print statement to display a value to the console. I've noticed that if I end my application using the end keywoard the contents of the print statement are not necessaryly in the console? However, if I put my print statement in a loop for i = 1 to 100 then the values are displayed. There seems to be times when the console is not displayed until a certain amount of text? Thanks |
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| mmm... I'll take a look to see if there's any bottle neck in the debuger thread... by the way, I'm looking for some more betatesters. everything seems very stable now, but I would preffer to ensure there aren't any more bugs, before releasing the official version. |
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| Go on then I'll have a go, (but I am rubish) On Sean problem, I too get this, is seems often as tho the console is "Stacking" its print statements, and if END happens before the stack it printed, then it isnt printed. In addition to Seans "fix". If you stick a delay before end, they are also printed. Dont think there is much tou can do about it tho. |
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| H&K, you say putting a delay(1000) before end will fix the issue? I'll give that a try. @Ziggy, I can't beta test because of a number of deadline. However, I will install the nexr release when you feel it is ready. Thanks |
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@Sean and H&K: Does this simple program reproduce the console bug= I mean, is "ended" shown in the console in version 0.7.52?Graphics 800,600 While not KeyHit(KEY_ESCAPE) Print "pppp" Flip Wend Print "ended" End |
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| Well, no. I dont have 7.52 (Still 7.51), Noramaly it happens for me when I have print statments inside the code to try and find an error. And when the program Drops out, (With an error, or an end), the prints even though sent arent printed. (I had just assumed it was my setup, as my program flow is jumping arround via hooks). I wouldnt worry about it, as I, for example, use Function MyEnd And so I have a pause in there to make sure. |
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| I REALLY love your work excellent job! Will you ever have an upgrade button rather than a full blown .exe? |
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| Many thanks, Ryan. @Sean: The Beta is going very well, really few bugs to solve. We're currently beta testing BLIde 0.7.56, and it's supoused to be the last beta version. Next official BLIde version will be 0.7.57 (maybe in a pair of weeks or so) |
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| I just tried this last night and it is excellent. Reminds me of coding in my Visual Studio environment, with popups for methods and fields on types and code completion. Great Work! |
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| I'm not going to use the Bug Report feature as I'm not using the latest beta (have 0.7.52). The IDE refuses point blank to let me type, for example, 'Local Fish:Object' when Autolists is enabled. I guess this is half-fixed from reading the above - but 'Object' doesn't appear in the list. Surely that can't be right?  |
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| @Gfk: The Object keyword doesn't apper in the autolist (it has been solved in current beta version), this version also lets you write anything even if the word is not in the autolist. |
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| Good stuff. So, how long before the next version is released? |
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| It deppends on how many bugs the beta testers find. If everything goes as it's going, the new release could be at the end of this week. |
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| Ziggy, Self. Doesnt bring up the members list. (That is, it will on a new doc, but it has stopped on any that I load in). It says Self:CorrectType and the bottom (info bit), but will not bring up the members list at all. (7.52) Any Ideas |
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| Ziggy, I love BLIde (especially when in an OO mood) however one thing that really annoys me is that my version of BLIde doesn't list the TGadget type when defining new variables. Would it be possible for owners of MaxGUI to have this included in the drop-down list? Also, when debugging large projects (and the variable you are keeping an eye on is at the bottom of the scrolled debug tree), when you step to the next line of code, the variables update (as expected), but the treeview returns to the top, and so you have to scroll back down and find the variable again... :-( Thanks, keep up the good work, Seb |
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| Hi Ziggy :) Many thanks to release this version ! :) i find the blide launch more speed than the older version :) i have change MaxIDE with your Blide now :) Great job ! |
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| Ziggy - couple more I found in 0.7.52. Enter this code: x.mytype = New mytype Type mytype Field abc:Int = 10 Field def:Int = 20 Field ghi:Int = 30 Field jkl:Int = 40 End Type 1. Move the cursor to the start of the first line 2. Click on 'ghi' in the local shortcut list 3. delete 40, type 50 (or anything else) and wait a few seconds 4. Cursor jumps to first line of type declaration. Very irritating because it does it in the middle of you typing stuff. Seems to be when the local shortcut list is refreshed but I don't know for sure. I also have another problem where not every field within a type is showing up in local shortcuts. Haven't been able to pinpoint the cause of this one yet. Another little problem. Click on anything in the local shortcut list, then scroll away (up or down, it matters not) and type something, then click whatever you clicked before. Nothing happens because the IDE seems to think you must still be there because that was the last thing you clicked on. Can't test the new beta as I don't have it, so maybe these problems are fixed. Probably worth mentioning, though... |
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| @Seb: You will have to 'refresh the modules cache' on next start up (in the file menu) @gfk: all of this has been solven in current beta. Anyway, thanks for reporting. |
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| Hi ziggy, I think the "sudden cursor jumps" are not 100% solved in current beta. I got them from time to time. Unfortunately I failed to reproduce this error so I did not leave a bugreport. I got this error only a few times cause it's occurance is very rare. That makes hunting it not easier... |
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| Ok, I'll take a deeper look. not event a little idea of when did you get it to happen? |
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| Hi ziggy :) i notify a strange stuff with this code : On my machine it's impossible to write RED in lowcase or to write alpha with a A in uppercase ? do you have an idea ? |
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| You have auto syntax turned on. And some lasy typist in the source code has already syntaxed alpha as lower case. And Green ;) |
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| @filax: wich version are you using? |
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| The last on you web site + the last patch 0.7.52 For information ziggy, i have test on another pc i have the same problem :)now i'm sure that the problem is not on my personal PC :) Good luck :) Request : In my dream i see "A module to check the project module needed and create the framework automaticly" like the software FrameWork Assitant :) |
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| I think you will be able to solve this in the next version. :D to the Framework Assistant... I've asked for a simple change (just let the FA receive a bmx file as a parameter in the command prompt). If the Framework assistant makes this, the FA could be linked to work with BLIde as an add on. |
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| Many thanks Ziggy :) and bravo for this excellent tool :) (i'm using it now :) and i like it ) Another question : Blide save all source files when i compile ? it seem not :( i must made CTRL + S all the time before compil, can you add an option to save all sources files before compilation ? :) |
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| BLIde saves all source files of the project you're compiling before compiling, but only if they have been modifiedsince last save action. If you're working with single bmx files (non project oriented), blide wiwll only save the single file you're compiling. |
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| Hum the problem is : I open multi doc (my main program and all my includes) and the problem is the automatic save, if i modify one of my include and next , if i select my main program before press F5, blide seem don't save my changes under the include ? Because i need to make a CTRL + S under the previous code TAB, else my changes are not visible. So i notify another problem with the FIND/ REPLACE window 1) Under my code i select and copy a string 2) I open the FIND/REPLACE window 3) I select the first input box and i paste my text 4) I select the second input box and when i try to make CTRL+V, the text is pasted under my code and not under the second inputbox. See ya Ziggy :) |
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| @Ziggy I will be glad when you fix the syntax problem, (But last time I asked you just said turn it off) Do you have a comment on the lack of members after I type Self. If I do Self:Type. the member list appears but not when I do Self. Again if I create a new file, it works. But if I am editing an old one it doesnt. |
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| @H&K: wich version are you using? It works ok here... @Filax: I'll solve this for the next version. |
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| @Ziggy. .52 It was working perfectly. And it still works if I type Self:Type. I cannot even give you a code snipppet, because if I retype the code back in on a new doc, then it works. Yet if I cut and paste the same code it doesnt. I figured that self wasnt reconising the type, but it is, cos it tells me the type at the bottom. I also thought for a bit that maybe self didnt work if at no point I had a new for that type. (This in fact was me belief for a long time). Hopfully its just a glitch and will dissapear next release, I even uninstalled .51 and reinstalled plus .52 |
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| Do you have any TAB in the type declaration? if so, it was fixed in beta 0.7.54 (now we're beta testing 0.7.56, and I hope it'll be the last beta before releasing 0.7.60, as it's being very very stable) |
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| Tab, err yes lots and lots. (Im very anal About Type Layouts) When I fold things I have all the Rem statments Linedup etc |
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| @H&K: In that case, the self thing is fixed in current beta, and this fix will be available on next version. @Filax: If your applications needs more than one BMX file, and you want them to be saved before pressing F5, create a project, all files modified from the project, will be saved before compiling. To create a project, just follow the wizard instructions. Create BLIde file, then select the main BMX file of your project, and that's it. problem solved. Single BMX file usage is there just for small programs o simple tests. Creating a project is the best way to work on applications that involve several files. |
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| Ahhh ok ! you are right i have forget to create a project file ! :) |
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| Ziggy, with the beta a couple of things... -in a rem and end rem block, "bbdoc:" is not highlighted as a comment. instead it shows up as a key word. -for the F2 help can you show continued lines? sometimes with functions/methods that have lots of params I do this: Function Create:TPeriod(frames:Float, alphaFrom:Float, alphaTo:Float .. ,scaleFrom:Float, scaleTo:Float .. ,colorFrom:TRGB, colorTo:TRGB, recycle:Int)that would be awesome if you could grab the whole definition. -how about colorizing brackets... ()[], commas and periods? maybe the same as operators? -sometimes New isn't colored at all in a file as a keyword.... sometimes it is. weird, I'll watch this some more. -when I run a project F5 or F6 or clicking the buttons, it runs fine then when I exit it starts again.[edit] whoops, I had "build as BLIde PlugIn". no problem now. -how about a key to delete the current line like maybe ctrl-x deletes the line if nothing is selected? -as I type little graphic glitches pop up... like sometimes a line will duplicate down then once I press another key it fixes itself. -the max ide... or maybe just he community one will name the debug .exe as blah.debug.exe very handy, what do you think? |
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| @dmaz: bbdoc is hilited becouse it is a keyword used to document modules. should it not be hilited? the F2 showing complete lines is something I will add soon, but It affects the complete parser spetially when reading modules, so I will do it for a next version, becouse of the deep changes it implies.anyway I will do it. the the new features request (colorizing braquets, the Ctrl+X and the debug naming) are good sugestions. The duplicate 'line' is a renderer lag that can happen sometimes in very speciffic conditions. I'm working to solve this, but you may know is a little showing issue, not affecting the source code or anything. anyway, i'll try to fix it as soon as possible. The New keyword sometimes is not colorized. well, that can happen when you have a method called New. the parser can interpret the New keyword as a reference to the New method (if methods and keywords have different colors, the color can changge). |
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| No, bbdoc shouldn't be lighted in a comment... the comment should take precedence. new keyword not colorized... ok I see why, yeah I think I like that. |
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