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Return To ShopLittle Things that make Big Quality – See what’s coming in 11.2 Alexandria
Delphi, C++Builder and RAD Studio 11.2 is very close to release. I recently posted a sneak peek into one new IDE feature. But what else might be coming in the IDE?
11.2 is a quality-focused release. That means a lot of work on existing features, ensuring they work smoothly: high DPI VCL design, for example, is an area with a lot of focus and improvements. So is performance. So is the C++ toolchain, and the Delphi compiler. So is FireDAC (and there’s some great stuff coming there!) But quality can also means polish, attention to detail, focusing on a plethora of small things that together add up to really improve the experience of using the IDE.
Here are a few examples of improvements we’ve made to your IDE experience:
In the Projects view, you double-click a tree node to open a unit. Yet, currently it also always expands that tree node, when you didn’t want it to do that. It’s much better to do the expected thing automatically: to do what you intuitively expect. Now if (for example) you double-click a unit, it will open it but not expand to show the DFM – as expected.
The Compile dialog: today, it doesn’t show the target platform or bitness you’re building. But it really would be useful to see that and know exactly what you’re compiling – and that’s what’s in 11.2.
Editor tabs: you can’t visually distinguish between a tab holding code, and a non-code tab with different functionality, like editing a type library or viewing source control. But you should be able to tell the difference between all of those, easily. Join the webinar to see what we changed!
The CPU view: assembly language is hard to parse. We, as an industry, have a visual solution to that: syntax highlighting, which would be really nice to use in the CPU view…
Many people add data modules to their projects. Yet for some reason, the File > New menu didn’t have Data Module as a top-level item and you had to dig into the New Items dialog or customise the menu. Better to have it there by default!
Good UX shows things so you don’t have to figure them out. An example is the default button in a dialog: which action will occur if you press Enter? You know, it’s a small tweak, probably only taking a few minutes, but we could make that a bit more clear…
Many people like customising the IDE: after all, you spend eight hours a day using it. And it supports VCL styles, even using three inbuilt. And sure it’s been available in the registry for a while, but why not make a first-class feature so that you can use any VCL style, to make – like any craftsperson does building out their workshop – the place you work in truly yours?
Small things. And not our main focus this release: our main focus is quality, resolving issues. But quality can mean not just fixes, but paying attention to the small everyday interactions in the IDE.
11.2 is a release where we’ve paid a lot of attention to detail. As well as new features, great ones, 11.2 has a big quality focus, not just on resolving issues but also on the small things that matter when you use the IDE every day. But there’s a lot more. Join our 11.2 launch webinar on Wednesday 7th September to find out some of the Big Things too!
