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AppGameKit Studio Chat / AGK Studio IDE (Qualiy of Life) Requests

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Raven
19
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 23rd Mar 2005
Location: Hertfordshire, England
Posted: 15th Mar 2020 01:50
While I'm sure many of these are just personal preference, the Studio IDE isn't exactly "Nice" to use for long periods.
And as the IDE doesn't really seem to have been touched (at least since launch, but from what I can tell perhaps even longer) ... I think it would be nice to see some improvements on it.

1 • Custom Icons & Icon Sizes
Now as a note, it's clear that the IDE itself is actually using 3D Acceleration (OpenGL as I understand it) ... meaning the Arbitrary sizes that you can set the Icon to
"Standard", "Large" and "Extra Large" are just that... arbitrary and likely not a limitation of the IDE itself.

I say this because "Large" seems to be scaled for 1080p, while if you look at the icons in "Standard" they're actually substantially smaller than that.
Now strictly speaking, it would be a good idea for TGC to implement an SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics) Library that can Rebuild Icons (and Text) to whatever Native Scale is being used... but this doesn't seem to be the approach being used.
Instead Bitmap Graphics are being used, which isn't an ideal approach.

Still you can get away with this provided you create Image Sets, for each scale.
(Microsoft actually has some excellent documentation on this in their Fluent UI Design Whitepapers., but again they do recommend building XAML SVG with Microsoft Blend instead of relying on Bitmap Icons)

2 • Native Scaling for 720p, 1080p, 1440p and 2160p

Has anyone unchecked the "Upscaling Remove Blurred Look"?
Without the Anti-Aliasing Pass the whole UI essentially looks like it's at a weird scaling. Turn it on, and well you have a "Soft" Blur to the entire Output... something that honestly I have to take short breaks from every 30-45min because it somewhat hurts my eyes.

Now here's the weirder part of this., I've switched the Font from Default to Consalas.ttf (which is also used in Visual Studio)
It's a really nice font for programming / looking at for long periods... likely why Microsoft uses it over Segoe UI (which is their standard Desktop Font but not Monospace, which throws things like Tabulating off)

I initially figured... "I can use this at the same Font Size and the output should be nearly identical to Visual Studio", except it isn't.
Consolas Size 10 in Visual Studio, is Size 14 in AppGameKit IDE.
It doesn't make sense to me why these are different., and I think this is part of the issue at play in terms of why the UI generally just doesn't look right.
Really, I think that Scaling needs to be addressed; especially at the "Common" Resolutions that people are going to be using.

At 1080p, 1440p and 2160p... the UI should have a Crisp and Sharp appearance.

3 • Highlighting Options

While it's nice we have "Themes" we can set., I think there is an issue at play in regards to the actual options for it.
Personally I think the Dark and Light themes should essentially mirror Visual Studio / Visual Code... Microsoft didn't select these Palette Sets on a whim or for legacy purposes... but rather because they're the most comfortable to use for long periods.

Marching to the beat of your own drum isn't always a good thing.
What's more odd is the Classic Style / Retro Blue., is QBasic not Dark BASIC Classic... anyone else find that just weird?

Still, what's of more note to me is that there is no way to specify separate Colours for Variables, Constants, Pre-Processor Commands, Native (Plug-In) Commands, User Commands and User Defined Types.
Although the Dark BASIC Professional Editor didn't strictly speaking have these differentiated by "Default" ... it did have the Option to set these., and you could essentially take all of the Colour Options from Visual Studio (or your favourite C/C++ IDE) and use that in it.

Again this might seem like a "Little" thing., but given that all of these are Highlighted... I don't see why they can't also have their own "Style" because clearly the IDE can differentiate them.

4 • Project Solution View

Regardless of what your Source Code is... it always shows all source as a Flat (i.e. as if it's all in the same folder) View., and the weirder part is... it will list all of the folders but they'll always be "Empty" showing none of the Media or Source code in them.

I think what would be better is to have the Solution Name > Media / Source / References
It'd be good to see all the AppGameKit Subsystems / Plug-Ins being used in the project at a Glance... have the ability to have a Solution Layout how you'd prefer to have it.

Mind I'd argue this does come hand-in-hand with another bug bear of AppGameKit BASIC that I have., and that's the inability to have Nestled #INCLUDE / #INSERT
I'm not sure why this change was made to AppGameKit, but it result in making "Expansion" Codebases to be quite frustrating; as you either have to expressly tell someone "Oh you have to be sure to Include X, Y, Z in the main.agc OR simply have a single .agc that has all of the functionality / constants / types / etc. that because you could be using them in another codebase have to all be name specific to that codebase.

I'd argue that the addition of #IF #ENDIF Pre-Processor Blocks where you can check for populated Constants / Definitions would be insanely useful.

5 • Views

I'm not sure if this is just on my System or not... but it has a habit of Randomly Opening and Closing., and given it's in a Side Tab; this means the Editor Area will keep shrinking and growing when it does this.
Is there any particular reason that it's in a Side Tab instead of opening up a Browser / Help Window?
I don't have anything against it always been open, just don't want it taking up so much of my Editor View that it makes it difficult to see much of my code.

I'd argue the same is with all of the Sub-Window / Tab Areas... there's no way to Pin / Unpin them to Auto-Hide when not in usage.
And frankly with the Default Layout, dang near 60% of the IDE Space is used by all of the Views that you're not using most of the time... making the whole thing feel cluttered and claustrophobic.

Now I have moved things about a bit... so the Asset Brower and Media Viewer is on the Projects View (as Tabs) and the Debugger is with the Message Window.
This feels like a more sane layout, but still be nice to have them auto-hide.
With the last thing being... why is the Preferences Window a Modal rather than a Separate Window?

6 • Code Snippets Support

And incredibly awesome feature of the Dark BASIC Professional IDE was having a Code Snippets Library, that you could just insert common functions or such into what you were doing; which you'd tend to naturally build up over time.
It'd be insanely useful to have again.
GreekToMe
14
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 27th Oct 2009
Location: Colorado
Posted: 16th Mar 2020 20:50
I am in tune with suggestions #5 and 6.
The current IDE is "making me think a lot".
Some of you may say: "get another hobby/profession". It may be true. The grey cells are being used up and no end in sight.
GreekToMe
14
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 27th Oct 2009
Location: Colorado
Posted: 16th Mar 2020 20:55
If I may add: Line wrapping[u]
As we all know moving sprites around etc. creates long lines, especially if our variables are long and descriptive (me, moi and myself, guilty as charged). It would be nice if we can break down code in two or more lines
Cheers!

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