Re: Ada IDE

[Michal Nowak <vinnie@inetia.pl>]

On 01-11-16 at 10:58 Marin David Condic wrote:

>It is a competitive price with MSVC++, and the environment is immediately
>familiar to those who know MSVC++. (It would be nice to see something
>similar with GNAT - not *identical* since there are things I don't like
>with
>the MSVC++ style - but with some of the same capabilities.)
>
>I'm a little disappointed that the GUI builder does not seem to come with
>the distribution - or if it does, it doesn't seem to be integrated with the
>IDE as it is in MSVC++. (I really have not got the time just now to do a
>really good evaluation of this! Eventually, I'll find that elusive Round
>Tuit.) The IDE is also not nearly as spiffy - it doesn't break open package
>specs etc on the left-hand-side and let you point-n-click navigate to items
>within a package. I have not driven around the debugger to see if it is as
>spiffy as the one in MSVC++, but then again, this is *Ada* so I wouldn't
>expect to need it nearly so badly.

It is in some way integrated - in my Sepcial Edition v7.1 it is under
Tools->GUI Builder. In fact, it fires separated application for building
all this graphical stuff (as I remember, in MSVC it was tightly integreated
with IDE). What I found nice in GUI Builder, that it works in very similiar
way, to this from Borland's products. Especially the window 'Project Manager'
with properties for these graphical elemnts makes changes quick and easy.
Entering code for events associated with objects is also familiar from
Borland's builders. There are about 20 of controls, which should be
enough for most applications (as I remember, there were lots of them in
Delphi or C++ Builder, I have no access to these tool at the moment).
I found easy description of how to build first GUI application, but
I couldn't do it. For some reasons, I have no possibility (the option in
menu is always disabled) to save the GUI project and use it with program.
Maybe this is because of limited edition - so I just have the smell
of graphical application...
The plus of the GUI builder is that all controls are "windows-like".
It may sound strange, but when I pointed Jeffrey Carter's Mine Detector
Game to some of my friends (who are just typical computer users and
have nothing common with operating systems other than Windows), they
said, that they felt very strange and have troubles to get familiar with
GTK look. After some time, they still look strange at this such GUI.

In general, I found it easier to use than MSVC++. I had no trouble to
build simple application (although it was no-GUI one, there should be no
trouble in building such one). As I remember, when I fired MSVC for the
first time I felt terribly lost and spent some time in discovering what
is going on there. I had no such troubles with OA.

I didn't write any windows GUI apllication under GNAT yet, so I don't
know how it goes with CLAW or GWindows. Right know I'm staying with
GNAT, but in the future OA may be worthy buying. It is a fine product.

Mike
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