[Gambas-user] About Visual Studio Express

[Bruce Bruen]

On Tue, 2012-04-03 at 10:09 +0100, jm wrote:
> On Wed, 2012-03-28 at 15:40 +0300, Demosthenes Koptsis wrote:
> > These days i started to test Visual Studio Express 2010 to compare it 
> > with Gambas3.
> > 
> > Does anyone have any experience with VB Studio Express ?
> > 
> > Are there any characteristics that may be we wanted to see in Gambas3 ?
> > 
> > Thank you !
> 
> I don't do VB, but here is one feature I would sorely appreciate.
> 
> [This may be too much to ask.]
> 
> I do 'frenzied' amounts of Gambas programming when on a roll, and keep
> hitting one brick wall often.
> 
> The most common problem is knowing what objects are what and their
> properties and methods in an easy way that doesn't interfere with
> 'frenzied' programming and debugging flow.
> 
> Take something like the object "Application.Path" which you might find
> in code.
> 
> When I double click Application, it highlights that part of the text.
> When I then right click, I get a pop up menu to insert a break point,
> cut, paste, copy, etc. All nice. What I also want is an "info" menu
> option added to the pop up menu.
> 

Try double clicking on Application and then hitting F2 ( or even just
click the cursor somewhere in "Application" and hit F2).  If you really
want it on the context menu, try "Find Definition".

> The info menu will open a sub menu with first item titled help.
> If I click help, it launches a web browser of choice and a html file
> that documents that object.
> The remaining items in the sub menu is all the properties and methods of
> "Application" object can be set to, and if I click on any of those I get
> help on each of those sub properties.
> 
> If I highlight the "Path" in "Application.Path", and then right click,
> the info menu should change context to pull out help files
> relating to Path.
> 

Not really sure  what you mean by "help files relating to Path." but if
the cursor is positioned in the Path part of "Application.Path", then F2
(or the context menu "Find Definition") brings up the help on
Application.Path for me OK.

> The closest I can get to at the moment is to type "Application."
> and as soon I enter the "." a pop up displays all the properties and
> methods which allows one to guess the parameters of "Application"
> and effectively in an indirect way obtain limited help on "Application"
> object.
> 
> The same scheme of info menu can be extended for all the other objects
> such as TextBox1.Text etc. The info menu will discover the object type
> that has been selected and populate the sub menus with all the
> correct values so that help can be obtained instantly on any object
> and property or method.
> 
> In my opinion it will help a lot with rapid programming and debugging
> flow.
> 
> #### aside ###
> 
> As an aside, HTML documentation is becoming a lot easier to manage.
> If the HTML file is opened with konqueror, then install kompiz as well
> for editing the HTML file. After installing kompiz, right clicking a
> document in konqueror brings up a menu with option
> "Open With >". Clicking that opens a sub menu that lists kompiz. Click
> on the kompiz and hey presto, the HTML file is now opened for WYSIWYG
> editing!
> 
> The edited files can be saved. So the next time you press for HTML based
> help through the info method, you got the most up to date help file that
> you personally updated with code fragments and helpful notes.
> Developers can contribute their personal help files back to the project.
> 
> It would be good to offer the option to keep a duplicate copy of html
> directory as a personal html directory that does not get over written
> when new versions of gambas are installed.

On this, I have no idea.

Cheers
Bruce