ZeroBrane Studio Lua IDE v0.50 is out

[paulclinger]

Auto-complete API in ZBS has been updated for 0.9.1. The updates are in the current master version of ZeroBrane Studio on github.

[Teraku]

Does debugging work correctly now? I tried ZeroBrane back in December, and when starting a game with the debugger on, the game just didn't load, and hung instead. But if it works again, I'll definitely be getting back into it. It's a great IDE.

[paulclinger]

Does debugging work correctly now? I tried ZeroBrane back in December, and when starting a game with the debugger on, the game just didn't load, and hung instead. But if it works again, I'll definitely be getting back into it. It's a great IDE.

Teraku, I'm not aware of any current issue with the debugging, other than what I referred to last time this came up. If you have more details on the issue or can provide a simple test case for me to work with, I'll definitely take a look at what may be causing this.

[Teraku]

Does debugging work correctly now? I tried ZeroBrane back in December, and when starting a game with the debugger on, the game just didn't load, and hung instead. But if it works again, I'll definitely be getting back into it. It's a great IDE.

Teraku, I'm not aware of any current issue with the debugging, other than what I referred to last time this came up. If you have more details on the issue or can provide a simple test case for me to work with, I'll definitely take a look at what may be causing this.

It seems the program no longer crashes when debugging. I am on a different PC than before though, but I'm happy that I can now debug my games properly. Autocomplete also seems to work much better now.

Great program! I will definitely be getting back into Love2D now that I can properly debug my games.

[paulclinger]

@drakmaniso, @OttoRobba, @SneakySnake, @MadByte, I pushed a batch of changes that includes most of the UI updates I plan for this release. Most of the changes have been checked into `master` branch of the repository; several filetree changes checked into `filetree-simplified` branch.

After running this version, you'll need to select `View | Default Layout` to see all changes. I'm working on getting it done automatically, but it will only work for "release" versions, so you need to do it manually.

If you are using filetree-simplified, the project dropdown is gone. To compensate for the removal, I added the following:

1. `File | Recent projects` menu item.
2. `Ctrl-Shift-<` shortcut to switch to the previous project (Cmd-Shift-< on OSX).
3. Right click menu in the filetree (on any item) shows `Project Directory` item that includes a list of all projects with their interpreters.
4. Editing the project directory in the tree allows you to switch to a new different that is not on the list (or you can use Right click menu, `Project Directory | Choose`).

I'd love to hear the feedback as this is what's planned for the next version. Thank you. Paul.

[OttoRobba]

New theme is pretty nice, seems easier on the eyes and is a big improvement on the default

One thing though: I would make the default text grey quite a bit darker - right now it is too close to the comments grey and on low density screens (80dpi) it looks a bit blurry. I made a quick mockup on the shade change, the levelFactory line is darker as you can see.

[paulclinger]

New theme is pretty nice, seems easier on the eyes and is a big improvement on the default

One thing though: I would make the default text grey quite a bit darker - right now it is too close to the comments grey and on low density screens (80dpi) it looks a bit blurry. I made a quick mockup on the shade change, the levelFactory line is darker as you can see.

Agree; looks good. What's the color value of that default text?

@OttoRobba, and the removed project dropdown doesn't bother you?

[OttoRobba]

RGB(100,100,100) or #676767 basically. RGB(80,80,80) should work fine too, if you want it a bit darker.

The removed dropdown annoys me a little - not because I'm constantly change projects (I'm not) but rather because I don't think it is the right solution for the user experience. The ideal thing would be merging the selection dropdown with what is displayed as the root folder. Like the screenie below from brackets:



Which on click does this:



Same project as shown when under Zbstudio (with dropdown just for the sake of comparing presentation of similar functionality):

[paulclinger]

@OttoRobba, I agree, it does look nice, but it's not something that wxwidgets can currently support. So, I'm limited in this case to the option of keeping the dropdown or providing a context menu. Another option would be to add a small arrow (like you see in the main notebook that shows currently open tabs) and make it a menu to switch between the projects. This unfortunately requires some wxwidgets changes as well.

[OttoRobba]

Understandable.

I know nothing of wxWidgets so I might just be talking out of my ass but wouldn't it be possible to create a button that is dynamically assigned a label according to the open project folder? Then just display that button and show the file tree below it. Similar to what is currently done but more integrated.

On click, the button prompts for a new project folder.

Doesn't have to be like Brackets, even so there has to be a way to make it more coherent.