First, let me tell you more about myself. I am the developer of an Integrated Development Environment for Windows called SkyIDE – developed in C++ Builder. The program is listed on File Forum here along with a screenshot. Don’t try downloading. Links no longer work. Everything is inactive and I no longer work on that project and I haven’t been working on it for 20 years! But more on that later.
About Orbitiny. I am literally resetting the entire Orbitiny code base. I am redoing all of the APIs that Orbitiny relies on so the next version of Orbitiny will be an entirely different project. I am replacing the very foundation of the project. This has to be done. This is why the project is in Pilot mode but I had enough testing and now it is time to fix what is broken.
Gestures will still be there, that’s what sets Orbitiny apart from other desktops. Icons will look traditional as I stated in the previous post. There is also a new rewritten and fast loading context menus – different look and professional. Literally, everything will be different and I will try to redevelop the panel and the file manager too. It is a lot of work ahead of me and it will take some time but it will be worth the wait. I anticipate to finish everything within several months and work has already started and is underway and will be posting screenshots as I go long.
My main goal is to eliminate the stuttering and bogging issue I myself experience as I use the desktop daily and knowing the code inside out, I decided that the only way to fix this properly is to start over.
About SkyIDE…It won’t be called that. It will have a different name. Also, I pay special attention to the start-up time. Right now, It’s lightning fast. It starts within milliseconds, the window “just shows up” instantly on the screen and has the following features so far.
- Rectangular selection – Hold Alt+Shift drag vertically.
- Convert Tabs to Spaces option.
- Word highlighting when the caret of the word is positined in the middle of the word. It also highlights the last typed word.
- Ctrl+/ to comment/uncomment lines (// and /* */). It works with C, C++, Java, JavaScript files currently.
- Alt+Up and Alt+Down to move selection up and down the document
- Simple function jumping navigator. Holding CTRL while clicking on a function name in the editor will try to find the function declaration / definition and take you there. The pointer turns into a hand and the function name into a hyperlink and when you click on it, it goes to that function’s declaration or definition. One level only currently. Header/source files and C/C++ support only.
- Pressing Enter while holding the CTRL key inserts a new line beneath the current line and positions (inserts spaces) the caret to the same column as it was on the previous line before hitting Enter
- Selecting text and pressing the tab key indents the selection, it does not delete it.
- Unsaved (and saved) documents from the previous session automatically get restored when you launch the editor (VSCode/Codum style).
- Selection and caret position restoration – When previous tabs are restored on startup (saved and unsaved), selection and caret position from the previous session are restored so everything is restored like it was before – same as VSCode/Codium
- Function View panel in the sidebar for C and C++ files. It shows function names in the current document along with function filter which you can use to find functions. Clicking on it will go to that function.
- Detects externally made changes to the file and it prompts you to reload the file
- Line Highlighting
- Terminal Window at the bottom of the editor – switching between open files automatically CDs to the file directory the active file path is in or $HOME if file is unsaved
I will be providing more updates soon.