[Openmcl-devel] Some more feedback regarding the Clozure CL IDE...

[Rainer Joswig]

Hi,

here is some more feedback regarding the Clozure CL IDE:


* It would be good to to have the indent-region command in Edit menu  
(in the menubar)
   and the right-click context menu. What other interesting commands  
should be
   available in the right-click context menu?

* If the apropos window is hidden, there was a package typed and
   then the window is shown again, the package
   is not visibly printed. It is there and can be selected, but there  
are
   no characters shown. Can't reproduce that now

* placement of new editor windows on the screen is not really that  
sophisticated.
   It seems to open the window always at the same place (plus some  
offset when
   you open new windows, so that they are 'stacked').  Textedit does  
the same.
   Apple Mail is a bit more clever. It stacks the new window at the  
horizontal
   position of the current window + offset. This allows you to move an  
editor
   to a new position and have all subsequent editor windows opened  
(stacked)
   based on this position. This is especially useful on large screens.

* MCL has control-click (IIRC) in the close box (red button) of some  
windows.
   It would simply hide the window. It would be listed in the window
   list, but with a mark that it is hidden.
   One could unhide the window later. This reduces screen clutter  
without the
   need to hide the window in the dock.

   I guess a similar scheme would be useful for Clozure CL, too.

* Option-click in a hemlock window closes all hemlock windows. It should
   really ask before it does that. Currently also there is the dialog
   that asks if you want to save a window (when it is modified). What  
should it do when you
   press cancel? Currently it leaves the window open, while all other
   editor windows are gone.

* Cursor movement in a Hemlock window. The Mac has page up/down and
   window start/end keys. Most applications (say text edit) only
   move the view over the underlying content. The text cursor is not  
moved.
   Unfortunately Hemlock moves the cursor. It should really stay
   at the place if one looks around in the file.

* There is an example currency converter by Mikel Evis. (Thanks for  
the example, Mikel!)
   It shows how to build a currency converter application with  
'OpenMCL'.
   What it seems to lack is a section that explains how to run the  
example
   from the IDE to test it out before saving the application. I should
   shortly explain how to get the currency converter window displayed  
from the IDE:


After writing 'Clozure CL' a few times, it seems to be quite  
natural. ;-) No more OpenMCL. ;-)


Regards,

Rainer Joswig