Re: Drag-and-drop editing - PLEASE!

Joe,
I know you have much more experience with WDSC and I, but I have to disagree.
I think if you want people to use a product you need some level of
familiarity--no doubt. But if you also don't have anything new, such as expected
GUI-based editor behavior (in this case), then you'll turn off those who will
actually be taking the early steps towards using the tool.
As for drag/drop editing. This feature is editor writing 101. I move lines of
code all the time. I have to do the C and A SEU thing to make that happen in
WDSC today. The Cut/paste function only partially works, so I almost never use
it, and never use it for full lines of text. Try double-clicking on a qualified
data structure subfield name in the calc specs, then Ctrl+C, then try pasting it
someplace else. You don't get what you copied, you get the qualified DS name and
that's it.
I'm used to moving the mouse to the left of the line, the pointer then turns and
points to the "2 o'clock" position and I click to select the line or click and
drag to select multiple lines, then I move the mouse into the selecded area and
it turns back to the 10 o'clock position and I drag the line(s) to a new
location. So easy, so productive, so sexy.
I abandon CODE/400 because it didn't have this feature, I'll probably eventually
abandon WDSC if it isn't added relatively soon.


-Bob Cozzi
www.i5PodCast.com
Ask your manager to watch i5 TV



-----Original Message-----
From: wdsci-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:wdsci-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx] On
Behalf Of Joe Pluta
Sent: Monday, March 19, 2007 9:00 AM
To: 'Websphere Development Studio Client for iSeries'
Subject: Re: [WDSCI-L] Drag-and-drop editing - PLEASE!

From: Vernon Hamberg

I've been really surprised that drag-drop editing has not been
available in RSE - it is ubiquitous in every other editor of any
flavor I know of - for text or for documents or for source or
whatever. Please, a request to the team to put more of this feature
into the product. Even things like drag-drop to move members from one
list to another. This capability is one I miss so - it would speed up
things a lot for me.

Drag and drop for what?  To move chunks of source?  I teach people this
tool, and I can tell you that the vast majority of green screen programmers
don't need drag and drop source editing.  Many have a hard enough time using
keyboard techniques such as marking lines of text and using Ctrl-C and
Ctrl-V (which is essentially all you save with a drag and drop).
 
There are some places in RSE (such as maintaining filters and filter pools),
where drag and drop would definitely make life better, but I think we're
reaching a point where we're starting to see a lot of "nice to haves", as
opposed to added functionality.  You know what I really want?

* A preference to auto-add semicolons when I forget them (and a keyboard
shortcut to toggle the setting while I'm entering a multi-line statement).

* Intelligence in the EVENT file handling to make sure people don't collide
when more than one person does a search at the same time.  This is a nasty
problem, and forcing people to set *CURLIB is not a solution.

* Better reporting and troubleshooting when debug fails. (I'd like a way to
simulate an SEP all the way through the servers, sort of like a PING
command, to identify where the request is hanging.)

* And of course, a replacement for SDA.

Those are real-world usability issues that would make everybody's job easier
and make it easier to get WDSC into the hands of green screen programmers.
After that, there are still things that would make life easier for lots of
people:

* The ability to click on an existing prototype and modify it using the
procedure wizard.

* Sort and subset the Outline view.

* Easy keyboard macros (standard record and playback).

* A build feature--I'm sure IBM wants to avoid stepping on any vendor toes,
but the ability to support something at the level of Alan Campin's Make
utility would be very helpful.  As Aaron points out, it would be nice if IBM
would help us move into the ILE world.

I'd like to see ANY of these before I see a lot more drag-and-drop.  Don't
get me wrong; drag-and-drop is definitely a convenience, but you can get by
without it with a few extra clicks.  If you're familiar enough with the tool
that drag-and-drop makes you significantly faster, then I daresay you're
already at the point where the tool is making you more productive.  But
there are some gaping holes where the product really needs to improve.

Maybe we need to set up two lists of enhancements: required functionality
and nice to have.  Or even one of those voting lists like the RPG
development team puts out, where you can spend theoretical development
dollars on various features.

Joe