[Geany-devel] project build dialog - Re: [ANNOUNCE] gproject - yet another geany project plugin

[Jiří Techet]

On Wed, Jun 9, 2010 at 18:15, Nick Treleaven
<nick.treleaven at btinternet.com> wrote:
> On Tue, 8 Jun 2010 18:59:35 +0200
> Jiří Techet <techet at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> To be honest, I find the new build dialog in 0.19 (and how it
>> interacts with the session-project) pretty confusing - when you use it
>> for the first time, you have no idea what it does (I had to look at
>> the sources to be sure).
>
> I assume you mean the 'Set Build Commands' dialog when you have a
> project open. I think that may be a bug - IMO the Project Properties
> Build tab should be shown instead. It is confusing ATM.
>

There are several confusing things:

1. The first section in the dialog ("filetype commands") depends on
the currently opened document. This wasn't clear to me at all. First I
thought that this was static. Then I noticed that it changes but I was
wondering how you set the file type. I would prefer if there was a
combo box where the item gets automatically selected based on the
current file, but which you can also manually change. This will give
people some indication that the first group is dynamic.

2. What you say - when the project is open, it's not clear whether you
are editing global options or project ones. IMO by build->set build
commands you should always set the global options and in project
properties the project options. Things get confusing when you start
changing semantics of menu items based on whether the project is open
or not.

3. The popup dialog for "make custom target" should be more flexible,
not hardcoded for item 2. I think there should be a new variable, e.g.
%t, which, when found inside command, causes that the window appears
and then substitutes %t with what the user specifies. This will make
it usable for other commands too.

4. non-filetype commands deserves a better name - I quite like your
"general" commands ("global" could be confused in the context of
setting global/per-project options). And I would also put them first
in the dialog - starting from general options to more specific options
(which means that execute command should come second). I had a problem
that somehow automatically I started editing the commands in the first
group (filetype) even though I wanted to edit the second group
(non-filetype).

OK, I wanted to write more things I dislike but after spending one
hour looking at the dialog I think I start understanding what's behind
it. There really needs to be a clear indication that the first group
is dynamic and I think the combobox is a good way to do that.

Regards,

Jiri