This is personal curiosity more than anything
If the list of things I like about the Xojo IDE is short then which IDE’s have you used for any product that you like things about it ?
I’m really curious what things about other IDE’s people like
Years ago I wrote a metric crapton of java/jsp in Eclipse. That IDE had the ability to stop at a breakpoint, allow you to modify the code in the method you were in, then rewind the stack to the entry point of that method and re-execute to your breakpoint. No full re-compile was needed, etc. This was incredibly useful for debugging nasty bugs.
for me the look of the IDE is way behind its functionality, the Xojo IDE is pretty basic and has the worst debugger I have ever seen (except Proton Development Suite) which does not have a debugger.
I never had any thoughts about the VB ‘look’, unimportant as it was very functional.
The IDE I use most recently is MPLABX which is dreadful to look at but the functionality is superb, the debugger is very good, the most useful I have used.
What makes the debugger in MPLABX functionally so superb ?
EDIT : A quick read suggests its a Java app - and if its a Swing app then it wont look right
Might not behave quite “right” as far as platform UI goes either as that can be a pain to get right in Java Swing based apps
hover over any variable and it gives its address and value, wherever you stop the code almost any variable is immediately accessible to view.
The single worst thing I dislike about Xojo is the debugger, not having the global variables available in a window at the same time as the local ones is just poor, having to go and find where they are and only have available in view the immediate variables is again very poor.
unless there is some hidden way to have all the app variables in view that I am not aware of I find the Xojo debugger a grind in use and I curse it every time I have to use it.
its net beans, and frankly I don not give a hoot how it looks, if it works properly and allows me to work significantly faster then the look of it really is unimportant.
it is ugly but I am very productive with it
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Debugging in MS Access allow you to continue after making changes and using the new code.
sometime i wish i can sort the variable in the list while debugging. Especially in the content of a form with a few hundred controls, look for one particular is so difficult
This is possible IF you dont run actual compiled binaries which I suspect Access does not
In a fully compiled binary you’d literally have to recompile the application and then somehow get everything to the “same” state to be able to do this
One of the things joe and I did discuss but never got to implementing 
Flyover variable values.
Break when a value changes (can be done if you change everything to a computed property, but…)
Immediate mode.
‘change and continue’
Like many, I’m not massive worried what the thing LOOKS like, my main issues are ‘how easy is it to find things, and how easy is it to debug’
It was easier to do these things in VB3/5 for example.
by lack of time or by the difficulty of programming ?
Hot Code Swapping has been a huge time saver available in B4X too. But as I understand from the MS Access example, just not possible in Xojo.
Still thinking of a single thing I like in the Xojo IDE Norman, but no luck so far… 
Guess just like @JeffT, looks have absolutely no value to me, only functionality that boost production. In that regard (sorry), the overuse of the mouse in the Xojo IDE has always annoyed me enormously, the same goes for not being able to see all the code of a class/module in one editor window. They hang a bit together, as in most languages, you just add methods and properties by typing them, instead of having to grab your mouse again.
neither really
just didnt since we had piles of things to get done and it jus wasnt top of either priority list
I’ve recently started using B4X, and its IDE is probably the nicest I’ve ever used. My favorite text editor is VS Code, which I use for editing Node.js, PHP, HTML, CSS, etc. The B4X Designer alone is worth the switch. You can build UIs way faster and easier. It is amazing that people still use Xojo when B4X does every platform 100% better.
A Windows only IDE wont fly with a lot of folks 
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Good point!
I, myself, have been wanting to switch to Linux, but I have too many apps dependent on Windows. Ah, well… someday.
Are there Windows emulators (on Linux and MacOS) that are at least decent for development purposes?
There are
I still end up using it to run Windows to check things in old VB6 projects that I’m working on porting
Since VB is a Windows only tool I dont have a choice about that
But, and this has long been my question to other tool vendors (Delphi etc), IF you claim you can make a macOS app, or x-platform app, then why isnt your IDE available on the mac as a native macOS app ?
Using your tool to write your tool IS a pretty decent way to prove your claims that you can make x-platform apps
That said I know why Delphi isn there and I suspect B4X has similar or related issues
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If it builds all the platforms why doesn’t it have a multi platform IDE? Is the IDE not built using its own language?
From what I understand, it was initially built on some other platform for Android development only; then later it went cross-platform. The IDE was already built at that point, and converting to B4X would have been a huge project.
Regardless, the question you have to ask is, which one do I want:
- Work on Windows but publish robust apps on all platforms with an IDE that isn’t sloooooow and work-stopping buggy, including a UI designer that makes it easy to create complex interfaces.
or - Work on Windows or Mac and only publish apps for desktops, with mobile devices maybe at some point, and maybe robust on any platform but unlikely for a long time.
I get the wish for an x-plat IDE, but it makes no sense, given what you GET with B4X and what you GIVE UP not using B4X.
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I’ve heard that the Xojo IDE is written in Xojo. Given the complaints I’ve seen from Xojo users about the IDE, as well as my own experience with it, shouldn’t that then, by your reasoning, make you not want to use Xojo. 
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Writing your tool using your tool is a double edged sword for sure
If your support for each platform is really good then it shows the power of your tool & frameworks
If not it shows that as well
Xojo’s IDE certainly has elements of both
It uses a lot of custom controls in different places because the built in controls arent / werent up to the kinds of things desired
The inspector would have required variable row heights of a listbox but thats not supported
So its a custom control which means things like accessibility etc dont work as well as desired
Or you get platform disparities - like the Xojo IDE toolbar which is mostly native on macOS but not at all on Windows or Linux - because those toolbar types dont support the things the mac one does (flex space etc)
I have tried B4X and there are things I like
And those I dont
So far I’m not in the “OMG I get so much more from it” camp
Nor are my clients
So I still use Xojo for work with them
That remains to be seen if it remains that way
My appreciation of B4X might be influenced by my programming past, in that I’ve done a ton of development with VB and VBA (and an obscure one: Euphoria). Most recently, however (last couple of years), I’ve been building apps with Javascript and C# (with an intention to create x-plat apps). Oh, and I maintain web sites with PHP (Laravel) and know HTML and CSS. And, this whole time, I’ve only used Windows (with some experience with FreeBSD).
I had purchased Xojo with hopes of having an easier development time and effort and the promise of cross-platform apps. Well… those are both, currently, not optimal (to be nice).
Having grown more and more frustrated with Xojo’s ever-decreasing-IDE-performance as my projects got bigger and bigger, and the counter-intuitive way it manages code, broken promises regarding x-plat development and robustness, I think a link at Xojo (before it got censored) lead me to this forum (IfNotNil.com). I fortuitously, maybe even providentially 
, saw a comment here about B4X, and the rest is history. After a brief exploration of the language and tools, I was quickly and definitely in the “OMG I get so much more from it” camp!
It would be interesting to do a side-by-side comparison if it hasn’t already been done. The only “advantage” Xojo would seem to have is that its IDE is cross platform.
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