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A little bit of market research...
Posted: Sat May 10, 2008 1:11 am
by Kale
I've been thinking about coding a new commercial IDE for PureBasic with full project support and a massively enhanced code editor far superior to JAPBE. But, would anyone buy it when the official one does the job well enough?
I use the official one and it's fine for almost every PB task, but do people want more?
Would you really buy a purpose built, professionally developed IDE for PureBasic with full project support, enhanced code editor, etc., even though you have the official one included with the PureBasic package?
This would be a commercial venture and probably cost somewhere in the region of $30-$40 per seat and be developed using .NET and C# and would be aimed at coders wanting a more professional/productive environment.
Posted: Sat May 10, 2008 1:13 am
by Mistrel
What would your IDE do differently from the official IDE?
Posted: Sat May 10, 2008 1:14 am
by Kale
Im thinking VS2005 but for PB.
Posted: Sat May 10, 2008 1:15 am
by ts-soft
Would the IDE have integrated Designer for Forms and MultiLanguage-Support?
Posted: Sat May 10, 2008 1:17 am
by Kale
ts-soft wrote:Would the IDE have integrated Designer for Forms and MultiLanguage-Support?
Yes, an integrated VD.
Posted: Sat May 10, 2008 1:19 am
by ts-soft
would this run on linux (mono)?
Posted: Sat May 10, 2008 1:21 am
by Kale
ts-soft wrote:would this run on linux (mono)?
I would always test on mono, but mono doesn't support every class of the .NET framework. So who knows.

Posted: Sat May 10, 2008 1:22 am
by UserOfPure
If it's anything like the Visual Basic editor, AND produces small tight code, then yes, I would pay for it in a second. PBDev comes close, but the code it produces is very bloated and all over the place, so I don't use it. And make sure your solution has all types of events for each gadget, ie. "OnClick(), OnKeyDown()" etc.
Posted: Sat May 10, 2008 1:31 am
by Edwin Knoppert
>PBDev comes close, but the code it produces is very bloated and all over the place
1) It's prob. bloathed code since i expect you want ~5-line programms?
The 'bloath'd' part will barely increase when used with larger apps.
It's *very* modular.
2) >and all over the place..
Hmm, the code is not for reuse, it's just meant to compile and then use the exe (or dll and such)
Often people simply can not handle the idea of 100% using a tool like this and will try to copy the code generated.
They stick what they used to do..
So be it..
Posted: Sat May 10, 2008 3:42 am
by pdwyer
Can't say for sure if I'd buy it till after I see it but I'd certainly consider it.
Somethings I'd like to see (I think you've mentioned some already)
- IDE and dialog editor in one tool
- Project support
- splitter in the code window (so you can have two parts of the same source file open in different places)
- works with the PB debugger (stand alone one I guess)
- A Project explorer (see below).
In Powerbasic I used jellyfish pro and Lynx. Lynx project explorer doc'd to other IDE's and was great, see for screenshots
http://www.zippety.net/ I don't think it's in active development anymore. Had a great tools tab too for launching things.
http://www.zippety.net/lx_pic2.htm
http://www.zippety.net/dockL.htm
I guess it's okay to pass a wish list back to a market research thread
Why not write it in PB?
Posted: Sat May 10, 2008 6:39 am
by Poshu
Maybe... It's hard to say you'll buy something that doesn't exist right now.
Posted: Sat May 10, 2008 7:07 am
by pdwyer
I guess the question is more "if a better or project oriented product comes out, how many potential customers are out there" or is everyone pretty content and not looking to buy even if a better product does come out.
I guess Kale would be the person to hazard a pretty good guess based on the book at how big the market is

Posted: Sat May 10, 2008 8:06 am
by Mistrel
You'll be marketing a niche product to a niche community. If you're happy with that then go for it.
Posted: Sat May 10, 2008 2:36 pm
by milan1612
Mistrel wrote:You'll be marketing a niche product to a niche community. If you're happy with that then go for it.
That's true, but you'd definitely have at least one customer

Posted: Sat May 10, 2008 2:44 pm
by rsts
Very possibly. I've bought almost everything PB that's been offered (including your book).
Might depend on the performance. I'd like to use the current ide but since my current development is a 20,000+ line program, anything in the current ide is too sluggish. JaPBe is instantaneous.
So if you can match JaPBe performance and give us a nice development environment, I'll take a real close look.
cheers