I'm still thinking that - if Geany wants to call itself an IDE - we should allow the maximum of build configurations because there is about an infinite amount of that out there. I can agree with grouping it, but *limiting* it intentionally for no obvious reasons (the advanced parts can be hidden until "advanced settings" is checked") defeats the goal of being an IDE.
Before the v1 build system was committed into trunk, I didn't even dare to call it an IDE, because build settings belong to it. This, and an integrated debugger, is what an IDE seperates from a simple text editor (hence my remark in the very first sentence).
The current dialog is a bit bloated indeed. I could imagine to solve it by hiding advanced settings (like the working directory), by providing an assitant which leads through the configuration or by a multi-tabbed interfaced to group similar build-system settings.
I must admit that I worked a bit with visual studio in the meantime. I'm not saying this bloody bloat thing (it's really huge, but it runs fast and has a lot of features[I probably used only 2% of it]) is the way to go, but (as I mentioned) its integrated debugger and build settings is what I expect from an IDE.
The "integrated debugger" is a plugin. Fine. But the limited build settings it had before committing the branch basically made it a text editor, not an IDE. I now more or less depend on the new capabilities of the build settings, so if you remove features I'm going to be dependant on the bloody terminal (VTE) feature again which simply sucks for just building a project.
Best regards.