Sorry your browser is not supported!

You are using an outdated browser that does not support modern web technologies, in order to use this site please update to a new browser.

Browsers supported include Chrome, FireFox, Safari, Opera, Internet Explorer 10+ or Microsoft Edge.

AppGameKit Studio Chat / Very basic usability questions.

Author
Message
paulrobson
9
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 22nd Nov 2014
Location: Norfolk, England
Posted: 24th Jan 2020 19:49
Link
Hi.

I'm presuming it's me being dim, but there appears on the face of it to be no way to switch between the currently loaded files, and when you exit a program the focus does *not* return to the editor window.

(Yes, I know you can click on buttons but nobody who writes a program of any size actually wants that because it is a total and utter pain in the neck as well as causing RSI. Pick mouse up. Put mouse down. Pick mouse up. Throw mouse through window. There's a reason developers editors are chock a block full of shortcut keys).

If not, it's unusable and I would like a refund.

Regards,

A *very* long time AppGameKit (Geany editor) user.




Back to top
Profile PM Email
PHeMoX
6
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 9th Jan 2018
Location:
Posted: 24th Jan 2020 22:17
Link
What exactly do you mean with switch between loaded files? You can have multiple projects opened and compile and run whichever you have active, open their code files (.agc) and so on and switch between them. The thing it doesn't always refresh are images (mostly preview window and Media files folder view related), however this is only their visual representation in the editor, they will just load whatever is the latest file of an image (ie. the last saved version in your media folder or harddisk).
Back to top
Profile PM
paulrobson
9
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 22nd Nov 2014
Location: Norfolk, England
Posted: 25th Jan 2020 18:13
Link
Have tried it on Windows. There are three major usability problems.

1) Alt-Tab does not switch between open files in Linux (reliably anyway). This is a bug presumably as it appears to work in Windows

2) Ending a program does not return the focus to the edit window which is incredibly annoying. This I raised as a bug in github and it was supposedly fixed, but it has become unfixed. it didn't in AppGameKit either but you could use F2 to return focus so you didn't have to pick the mouse up which programmers do not want to do.

3) The debugger is operated by mouseclicks, which is the same problem.


Back to top
Profile PM Email
PHeMoX
6
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 9th Jan 2018
Location:
Posted: 26th Jan 2020 11:09
Link
Ah okey. Yeah, I don't think Alt-Tab is a good way of switching between open files, if it involves a fullscreen app running. I too noticed it doesn't like alt-tab, but for me it's no problem. Do you run multiple instances of AppGameKit Studio or something?
Back to top
Profile PM
paulrobson
9
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 22nd Nov 2014
Location: Norfolk, England
Posted: 26th Jan 2020 13:51
Link
No, I mean when multiple files of the same project are open in the same window.

And it gets worse.

If you make a typo e.g. type SetTxetFont by mistake, it very nicely displays the error in the message area and highlights it in the display. This is very well done.

However you cannot (apparently) correct that error without picking the mouse up and clicking the focus back into the edit window. On Classic you could close that message window with F2, and it re-opened if needed which was a bit irritating but only that. This would drive me mad inside half an hour.

If TGC want this to be used seriously it is desperately in need of these very basic usability fixes. Fix the focus. Put a text file mapping keystroke events to events in the editor in (wouldn't worry about making the menus display them yet). Actually try writing some programs in the thing.

There are some terrific things here. The debugger is okay within its limitations. The help and information stuff is nice. But the downsides are so bad it's worse than useless.

Back to top
Profile PM Email
PHeMoX
6
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 9th Jan 2018
Location:
Posted: 28th Jan 2020 12:55
Link
Ah I see what you mean. Yes, using alt doesn't switch to other focus parts of the IDE (like the File Edit ... Tools DLC Help bar or Project Manager or Code window and whatever files you've got opened there), so you meant like a separated Alt and then Tab to browse through the files that are opened. Yes, that would be neat, even though I do use a mouse a lot, I'm also working on a laptop 70% of the time, so it would be neat to have this keyboard functionality.

To be fair though, I'd much rather see them fix the .APK exporting freezing up AppGameKit Studio or have the Help optionally open in the browser so the examples are able to load. I've yet to dive into using the Debugger, but from what I understand it is pretty useful. I do agree with you that the error messages occasionally disappearing is somewhat annoying to track down bugs. If the IDE knows which lines of code are causing the error, I wouldn't mind if the code jumps to those lines by default. I mean, is there ever a situation where we would not want to fix that part of our code?
Back to top
Profile PM
paulrobson
9
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 22nd Nov 2014
Location: Norfolk, England
Posted: 28th Jan 2020 16:27
Link
The debugger looks pretty useful. But it really needs to work like every other one, viz. you can single step, toggle breakpoints etc. from the keyboard. It's the same problem. The functionality is great, the usability is bad.

Not sure what it's written in, but it just needs to set the focus to the edit window on whatever the GUI equivalent of WM_ACTIVATE is here, and put a translation layer in the keyboard code which invokes menu event in response to key code combinations.
Back to top
Profile PM Email
paulrobson
9
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 22nd Nov 2014
Location: Norfolk, England
Posted: 20th Apr 2020 20:20
Link
Problem still exists.

There's a reason professional editors have keyboard shortcuts all over the place. Programmers do not want to pick the mouse up and click stuff any time they want to test the program. Partly because of things like RSI, partly because it's incredibly annoying.

It is not complicated. When the program ends or perhaps better when the main window is reactivated put the focus back in the editor window. This was 2 lines of code in Windows 3.0 and it shouldn't be any more now.

As it is, it's unusable. How do I apply for a refund ?
Back to top
Profile PM Email
tiresius
21
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 13th Nov 2002
Location: MA USA
Posted: 20th Apr 2020 21:08
Link
You can report bugs on Github. They're not going to get fixed/reported via these forums unless they're directly related to a new update and Paul checks that specific forum post.

You can ask for a refund contacting Rick Vanner. You're not going to get one demanding it in a forum post.
Funcygames.com
Back to top
Profile PM Email
Back to top

Login to post a reply

Server time is: 2024-04-19 15:35:37
Your offset time is: 2024-04-19 15:35:37