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Better IDE? (Read 1027 times)
combatdave
Better IDE?
Dec 13th, 2008, 12:21am  
After having worked with C++ in Visual Studio for a long time with tools such as Visual Assist, using the Processing editor is a bit of a drag. I was hoping there would be some recommendations for IDEs which can be used with Processing (and other languages...), and hopefully which include features similar to Visual Assist. Even just a list of classes/functions would be a step up, as my sketches are getting massive and traversing through them is hard.

I'm sure I'm not the only one who has looked for a new IDE... So... Anyone got any advice?

Oh, and I'm on OSX Tongue
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sw01
Re: Better IDE?
Reply #1 - Dec 13th, 2008, 12:46am  
One word: Eclipse.
Smiley

That said, when I teach anyone to code, I prefer PDE because it provides direct feedback - Eclipse is meant to be a be-all and end-all of IDE (I'm not saying it is, but that's its goal) and bit overwhelming for people with no experience with IDEs (but that wouldn't be you).  I think PDE is one of the best tool for experimentation/prototyping.

Search for Eclipse on this site and you'll find plenty of discussions and helpful instructions to get you started.
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combatdave
Re: Better IDE?
Reply #2 - Dec 13th, 2008, 1:42am  
Thanks! I'll definitely give this a look.

Just one thing - will I be able to just load up my .pde files and go, or will I have to modify them in some way?

Cheers again!
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sw01
Re: Better IDE?
Reply #3 - Dec 13th, 2008, 4:34am  
No, it gets a little ugly, unfortunately.  

You'll need to save it as Java and deal with it as Java.  All the sugary coating of Processing comes off and you'll be dealing with Processing's core library.  I think there is some kind of export tool for Processing, but you'll need to look that up, because all the transition I've handled were manually done.  Again, there is a vast array of past discussion about this topic, so you'll really need to look them up.

It's a trade-off, really: Processing is heavily extensible due to the fact that it's based on Java - but the ease of use comes from the fact that the entire basic functionalities can fit on a web page.  Autocompletion and Class directories really allows you to do near superhuman tasks of building a complex system like an extension of your body, but I don't think that was the goal of PDE, and if the project reaches that size, the complexity added by the transition Eclipse is worth the price.
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Ira
Re: Better IDE?
Reply #4 - Dec 13th, 2008, 5:24am  
http://processing.org/learning/tutorials/eclipse/
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combatdave
Re: Better IDE?
Reply #5 - Dec 13th, 2008, 3:21pm  
Eclipse is officially awesome Smiley

I was worried how difficult it would be to port stuff from pure processing to the more Java based stuff, but it was pretty simple. Thanks for the advice!
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sw01
Re: Better IDE?
Reply #6 - Dec 13th, 2008, 5:34pm  
Good to know.  One thing I'd like to say about my experience is that JOGL/OPENGL becomes a real pain when expanding Processing/PDE into Java/Eclipse - but that's an entirely different pool of long discussions. Have fun!
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julienb
Re: Better IDE?
Reply #7 - Dec 17th, 2008, 11:10am  
+1 Eclipse!
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