Re: Xcode - AN APPLE OPPORTUNITY!
Re: Xcode - AN APPLE OPPORTUNITY!
- Subject: Re: Xcode - AN APPLE OPPORTUNITY!
- From: Brian Lambert <email@hidden>
- Date: Fri, 02 Mar 2012 17:35:13 -0800
Thanks, Mike. My responses below.
On Fri, Mar 2, 2012 at 1:41 PM, Mike Swingler
<email@hidden> wrote:
On Mar 2, 2012, at 10:48 AM, Brian Lambert wrote:
Hey,
How about thread where we talk about the opportunities Apple has to improve Xcode 4. A positive thread to close out the coding week.
That sounds great.
I'm relatively new to Xcode, but, here are some of the opportunities I see:
I'm relatively new to working on Xcode, so I have a few follow-up questions. Obviously I won't make promises, will not attempt to answer "why" questions, or discuss future plans - but I am definitely empathetic to the concerns raised here. I would like to know how these specific pain points impact your daily work, and if you have any details how the Xcode 4.3 product could be improved to address them. If you file specific, focused, single-issue actionable items in <
http://bugreporter.apple.com>, that is your most direct path to changing the product.
- Bring back Distributed Builds, which disappeared in 4.3 without so much as a word in the "What's New". I want to be able to work on my Air and use the full power of the 27" iMac 3.4 GHz 16 GB RAM 240GB LaCie Little Big Disk SSD Death Star Mac in my office.
Were you able to effectively use this feature before? Could you see a measurable improvement? Was the difference only perceptible when doing a clean build, or where things actually zippier while working incrementally?
Well, the funny thing about the Distributed Builds feature being removed is that I bought a 13" MacBook Air so I could work around the apartment and use my other Macs to distribute builds. Not long after I bought the Air I upgraded to Xcode 4.3 and the feature went away. I spent 2 hours looking for why I couldn't use it. Its removal was never mentioned anywhere.
I noticed it being useful for clean builds. For incremental builds, I feel it slowed things down. That said, I think there are scenarios in my future when having this feature would have been useful. I am writing tons and tons of code.
- Build a bug reporting and feature request capability right into Xcode. We're developers and we live in Xcode. Let us enter bug reports and feature requests right in the tool itself.
10976727
- Detach and float any tab or panel. I have a 3 monitor set-up. Let me float any tab or panel I want.
I have a 5 monitor setup, and I sympathize. I frequently tear tabs off into their own windows, and I use Behaviors to push my builds/runs into the same named tab.
Do you have a bug # for tearing off the navigators, inspectors, debugger, etc? Do you have any specific suggestions if or how the editor window should be changed if the navigator is detached?
- IB zoom past 100%. Let me design my UI zoomed into 200%. I'm well over 40, and my eyes are not what they used to be.
I think this might already a popular request. Perhaps somebody else has a bug # for this?
I won't dupe this, then.
- Let me increase the font size in the Project Navigator, Issue Navigator, etc. Again, well over 40…
This is quite understandable: the General preferences pane has a "Sidebar icon size" setting which seems similar to this idea, though the default of "medium" is probably too big for most Xcode developers. A bug # for this would be helpful as well, esp if you have more detail about how you would make this discoverable.
10976792
- Display the current line number somewhere like most programmer's editors do. Sometimes I like to turn line numbers off.
Where? :-)
How about next to the file name in the Jump Bar: > Yayayaya.m (433) This is where meta information is displayed now (like which method I am in).
What is "on" about Git that is impacting your workflow? Is it in your way somehow?
Perhaps irrational. Just seems I should be able to turn SCM off if I'm not using it on a project.
- Add a feature (Visual Studio has this) to "track the active file" in the Project Navigator. Project Navigator / open file represents a master / detail view, and when the wrong file is highlighted in Project Navigator, it "tells me" the wrong information. I've made mistakes because of this. This is the first feature I turn on in Visual Studio. It's most useful for maintaining context.
This is an interesting idea - I've used this in Eclipse before, but something about being able to handle multiple selection bugs me about this (esp in the Xcode model where single-click directs the editor). Do you have any specific ideas about how this would work? Should a multiple (or divergent) selection be reset when you re-focus the editor? I'm sure this could be a massive email thread all by itself...
It's an option. When it's enabled, the selected file in the Project Navigator matches the file being edited. It's implicit selection. Also, the selected file is expanded-to and scrolled into view. I've used this feature in Visual Studio since day one. It's the first thing I turn on when I install VS. I can't live without it.
(By way of example, an email program with master / detail would drive you nuts if the selected message the the left message list did not match the message being displayed in the detail view.)
- Let me split a source file window horizontally so I can work on two pieces of the file at the same time (and keep them scrolling independently).
I'm sure there must be bugs about this already - any #'s out there?
- Fix bugs before adding new features. :-)
Best!
Best regards,
Mike Swingler
Apple Inc.
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