If you could make a scripting IDE and actually
release it, you'd be my hero. Seriously!
So many attempts have been made by so many people, but so far all failed to deliver something which could be considered useful. I tried to make one myself too once, but got no further than a few docked panels and some toolbars in a window.
The interface XML is just tedious to write and should really be generated by a windows designer similar to the designer for WinForms and WPF. There's no decent IntelliSense support for script files either, apart from the built-in editor. I believe a decent scripting IDE would revolutionize the whole scripting community.
Things I'd love to see:
- Pixel-perfect window rendering inside the window designer. That's a bit exaggerated though - if you could come close to replicating the rendering of windows and controls as done by Plus! so that you can more or less see how your window would look like, I'd be more than happy.
- Project Settings panel to generate ScriptInfo file. I believe it would be cool if you could alter ScriptInfo.xml without touching any XML at all. In Visual Studio, you have all project-specific settings such as project name and build options in an easy-to-use panel, I think this could work for Plus! scripts as well.
- IntelliSense for Plus! objects and events in JS files. Try not to hard-code these, these are exposed by the Plus! DLLs and you should be able to extract their names and parameters.
- I think Visual Studio is a great example of IDE design. Since the scripting IDE would share many features with VS, try to use the same design concepts and layout. It'll make your project feel more native and easier to use (at least to me).
- For the PLSC builder, make it possible to include/exclude certain files or directories from being copied to the PLSC. Script developers may have strange structures in their script folder. For example, I have Photoshop files in the Images folder and a subfolder with previous builds of my script. It'd be cool if I could just hit a button and don't have to worry about including unneeded files or forgetting necessary files.
I'm really looking forward to see how this project goes.
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