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Feedback/Ideas [message #108755]

Tue, 04 October 2005 07:39

Eclipse User

Originally posted by: abel.castify.net

Hi,
I'd like to give some feedback on my use of VE
Since 1 month, I've used a lot VE to mostly do high fidelity
protototyping...Next, I plan to use the generated code tu use for
production but it's another story.

To put things into context, I am a user interface specialist (from
goal/tasks analysis, interaction design to implementation). My plan is
to bridge the gap between the prototyping and the implementation
smoothly. I make some low-level prototypes on paper and then I go to VE
to make high-fidelity prototypes.

Overall, I love the tool and it helps me doing great things. Especially
it allows me to check what it is possible to do using only GUI Swing
components (versus using home made component that are sometimes too
costly to built)
For me, the worst point of VE is perhaps the performance since VE can be
really slow with complicated GUI (e.g 50 elements with
tabs/jtable/splitpane)

here's my feedback:
Im my use of VE, I deal a lot with the layout manager
- sometimes I use a null layout manager : in this case, I would love to
have a possibility to move component pixels by pixels (with arrows for
example)
-the gridbaglayout is really a poweful layout...and hard to master. Your
constraint editor ("customize layout/component") does really a great job
to. I just regret that it does not allow to deal with gridx,gridy...it
would be really nice...sometimes I need to modifiy the order of the
elements, and it's not easy to do with the direct manipulation
-it's not easy to change the layout of a JPanel (in general the
properties panel is not easy to use)...For component that accept a
layout manager you may allow to set it from the "customize layout
component" in a special tab...

- a toogle button that shows/hide all the boxes that are drawn around
jlabel, jpanel ,etc. would be nice to have a visualization of the final
result (but it's not crucial since it's easy to launch the GUI to look for)
-as I said in a previous post, I'd like to be asked for the component's
text properties (eventually icon for jlabel) as soon as I created a
JLabel,JcheckBox,...
-of course, a zoom tool would be very nice to deal with layout
details...but I imagine that is not easy to do request

One error I noticed: when you duplicate the class (copy/paste in the
package explorer) the duplicated class is not recognized as a visual class.

Keep up the good work!

Pierre Abel, Phd --- User Interface Specialist --- Castify Networks

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Re: Feedback/Ideas [message #108938 is a reply to message #108755]

Tue, 04 October 2005 23:05

Joe Winchester

Messages: 496
Registered: July 2009

Senior Member

Hi Pierre,

> For me, the worst point of VE is perhaps the performance since VE can be
> really slow with complicated GUI (e.g 50 elements with
> tabs/jtable/splitpane)

What particular task are you doing that is slow ? Is it opening the
..java file ? dropping and moving components ? using the property sheet
? using any other part of the VE ? Are you using VE 1.1 ? Does the VE
get slower the longer you use it ?

One question I'm interested is when you use the VE do you use the JRE
that Eclipse is launched with or do you change it to a different one ?

> - sometimes I use a null layout manager : in this case, I would love to
> have a possibility to move component pixels by pixels (with arrows for
> example)

Please open a bugzilla feature request for this. It's something that
would be a good feature to implement.

> -the gridbaglayout is really a poweful layout...and hard to master. Your
> constraint editor ("customize layout/component") does really a great job
> to. I just regret that it does not allow to deal with gridx,gridy...it
> would be really nice...sometimes I need to modifiy the order of the
> elements, and it's not easy to do with the direct manipulation

The reason gridX and gridY aren't there is because the design idea is
that you set these by moving the component around. Please open a
bugzilla feature request however as they would be useful to have.

> -it's not easy to change the layout of a JPanel (in general the
> properties panel is not easy to use)...For component that accept a
> layout manager you may allow to set it from the "customize layout
> component" in a special tab...

We have already done work on this in the 1.2 stream. What occurs is
that on the toolbar beside the "Customize layout" button is a drop down
list of layout managers. This lets you easily switch layouts. The
default layout manager is also possible to configure on a preference,
and by default it is now GridBagLayout for Swing and GridLayout for SWT.
SetLayout is also available on the pop-up menu against a Swing
Container or SWT Composite that lets you easily switch layouts so
hopefully it is easier to do than before

> - a toogle button that shows/hide all the boxes that are drawn around
> jlabel, jpanel ,etc. would be nice to have a visualization of the final
> result (but it's not crucial since it's easy to launch the GUI to look for)
> -as I said in a previous post, I'd like to be asked for the component's
> text properties (eventually icon for jlabel) as soon as I created a
> JLabel,JcheckBox,...

Both of these are good features and please open bugzilla feature
requests for them.

> -of course, a zoom tool would be very nice to deal
> with layout details...but I imagine that is not easy to do request

There is default GEF Zoom functionality availble that we did look at
implementing, however this is just a straight photographic zoom. The
reason we haven't done it yet is because we think that zoom needs to be
done step wise, so at each resolution the drawing is adjusted so things
like fonts change in a smart way, lines that are 1 pixel wide zoom down
remaining 1 pixel wide as long as possible so detail of how things are
framed isn't lost. For the task you want to do with zoom is this a zoom
in or zoom out ? If we did a straightforward photographic zoom would
that help or does it need to be smarter ?

> One error I noticed: when you duplicate the class (copy/paste in the
> package explorer) the duplicated class is not recognized as a visual
> class.

Every .java file can be opened with the regular Java editor or the
Visual Editor. Eclipse remembers the editor last used on a file and the
New Visual Class wizard automatically opens the Visual Editor, so what
is occuring is that your class you create with the wizard is first
opened with the VE and Eclipse remembers that. If at any point you open
a .java file with Java Editor this becomes the default for that file,
and likewise if you open any .java file with the VE that becomes the
default for that file. When you copy a file the information about the
last used editor is not carried forward. It probably should be though
so please open a bugzilla feature reqeust against the Eclipse platform
feature for this.

> Keep up the good work!

Thanks, and please do open feature requests.

Best regards,

Joe

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Re: Feedback/Ideas [message #109011 is a reply to message #108938]

Wed, 05 October 2005 14:38

Eclipse User

Originally posted by: abel.castify.net

Joe,
thanks for the answers..I will open feature request as soon as I have
the time to do it!
please find my comments inline.

Pierre

Joe Winchester wrote:

>> For me, the worst point of VE is perhaps the performance since VE can
>> be really slow with complicated GUI (e.g 50 elements with
>> tabs/jtable/splitpane)
>
>
> What particular task are you doing that is slow ? Is it opening the
> .java file ? dropping and moving components ? using the property
> sheet ? using any other part of the VE ?

To get the picture: the component I am prototyping contains the
following hierarchy:
JPanel->jsplitPanel
jsplitPanel-> topPanel contains two panels: the first panel is a complex
one (see below) the other one contains a ScrollPane and JTable
jsplitPanel-> topPanel -> complexPanel contains 15 panel that are nested
(5 level maximum hierarchy). there are about 20-25
jlabel/jcheckbox/combox box/... components inside the panels
jpsplitPanel -> bottom Panel is a tabbedpane ..each pane has
approximatively 5 panel inside.

When I open the java file: the bootstrap (Loading..). is little bit
slow ~8seconds ..
when I cut/copy/paste some components: typically If I duplicate the
complex Jpanel above it takes 15seconds. I see VE working since the java
editor is being updated...What is the most annoying is that there is no
task in the progress view and I cannot do others things in eclipse...
reverse parser is generally fast (3s max)

> Are you using VE 1.1 ?

I am using VE 1.1.0.1

> Does the VE get slower the longer you use it ?
>
not pretty sure.But I am using to restart eclipse regularly when it uses
too much memory.

> One question I'm interested is when you use the VE do you use the JRE
> that Eclipse is launched with or do you change it to a different one ?
>
I use a special JRE (I have several JRE available in my eclipse set-up
since some project are still using 1.3.1)

FYI, my setup:

Windows 2000 Sp4
P4 2.8ghz
1GB ram

I start eclipse with the following command line :
start .\eclipse -vmargs -Xverify:none -XX:+UseParallelGC
-XX:PermSize=20M -XX:MaxNewSize=32M -XX:NewSize=32M -Xmx256m -Xms150m

> We have already done work on this in the 1.2 stream. What occurs is
> that on the toolbar beside the "Customize layout" button is a drop
> down list of layout managers. This lets you easily switch layouts.
> The default layout manager is also possible to configure on a
> preference, and by default it is now GridBagLayout for Swing and
> GridLayout for SWT. SetLayout is also available on the pop-up menu
> against a Swing Container or SWT Composite that lets you easily switch
> layouts so hopefully it is easier to do than before
>
very nice! Just a thought: Are you not afraid of putting GridBagLayout
by default? It's my personal default,but it seems rather a complicated
layout for all users (especially first time users)..no?

>
>> -of course, a zoom tool would be very nice to deal with layout
>> details...but I imagine that is not easy to do request
>
>
> There is default GEF Zoom functionality availble that we did look at
> implementing, however this is just a straight photographic zoom. The
> reason we haven't done it yet is because we think that zoom needs to
> be done step wise, so at each resolution the drawing is adjusted so
> things like fonts change in a smart way, lines that are 1 pixel wide
> zoom down remaining 1 pixel wide as long as possible so detail of how
> things are framed isn't lost. For the task you want to do with zoom
> is this a zoom in or zoom out ? If we did a straightforward
> photographic zoom would that help or does it need to be smarter ?
>
it's a zoom in to deal with little details like the space between 2
components...when I work on small panel of my GUI I want to be able to
concentrate only on this and so zoom in the panel...but I want to
mention that zoom it is not very crucial for me..but it would be a nice
feature!

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