This is a migrated thread and some comments may be shown as answers.

Why custom IDE and not VS Add-in ?

28 Answers 123 Views
Feedback & Suggestions
This is a migrated thread and some comments may be shown as answers.
This question is locked. New answers and comments are not allowed.
Emanuele
Top achievements
Rank 1
Emanuele asked on 09 Jun 2012, 02:27 PM
Is in your plans a Visual Studio Add-In to build Icenium App ?

28 Answers, 1 is accepted

Sort by
0
Clemri
Top achievements
Rank 1
answered on 09 Jun 2012, 06:31 PM
Not at the moment but If there is enough demand for it we would reconsider.

Regards,
Clemri
0
sdobrev
Top achievements
Rank 1
answered on 09 Jun 2012, 08:50 PM
Hi Emanuele,

Can you ellaborate a little bit more why you would need a VS add-in? Are there any VS features that you are currently missing in Graphite?
0
Emanuele
Top achievements
Rank 1
answered on 10 Jun 2012, 09:59 AM
1) visual studio intellisense
2) other plug-in (eg. justcode, smart-tab, subversion internal repository, etc.)
0
sdobrev
Top achievements
Rank 1
answered on 10 Jun 2012, 11:08 AM
1) We already have basic autocompleting im place. You can hit Ctrl+Space to see it in action.
2) Actually the whole JustCode engine is integrated in Graphite. You can read more about this here. Regarding the version control it is already built-in. Check out this article.
0
Emanuele
Top achievements
Rank 1
answered on 10 Jun 2012, 11:22 AM
I already know integrated versioning in icenium, but in enterprise project, the code repository is private and consolidated to manage backup, auto-tag with build machine. Private repository is needed also for TFS teams.

I think icenium need to separate IDE from cloud-build-machine.
0
Sean
Top achievements
Rank 1
answered on 14 Jun 2012, 03:12 PM
I would totally agree that a VS Add-In is more attractive than a completely seperate IDE.  Feature consistency / additonal add-ins aside, the biggest thing is developer experience consistency.  We use Telerik controls for our current platform and would love to consider Kendo / Cordova and icenium for our mobility platform choice, but pushing our developers to adopt another IDE for that purpose seems to be needless when a VS add-in is a pretty simple proposition? 

To Support the add-in conversation, JustCode may be integrated into Graphite, but there is no way you'll be able to keep up with the development add-ins that are used across your development community?
0
Jan-Dirk
Top achievements
Rank 1
answered on 26 Jun 2012, 01:20 PM
There is a VS plug-in for Phonegap development. Not sure if I can mention it's name here though...
0
sdobrev
Top achievements
Rank 1
answered on 26 Jun 2012, 04:23 PM
Hi J.D.,

Feel free to share it with us. Also if you find something that they are doing better than us (besides being in VS) please share it as well.
0
Emanuele
Top achievements
Rank 1
answered on 26 Jun 2012, 04:27 PM
Another interesting product is Appcelerator (http://www.appcelerator.com/)

I'm a beta user of Nomad, but it seems that the project is stopped (no beta updates in 4 months)
0
sdobrev
Top achievements
Rank 1
answered on 26 Jun 2012, 05:51 PM
@Emanuele Can you share your view about Appcelerator? What do you find useful in their platform? How do you see it next to Icenium?
0
Jan-Dirk
Top achievements
Rank 1
answered on 26 Jun 2012, 06:04 PM
Yes, I was going to mention vsnomad. There was some activity on their Twitter, but like Emanuele said, no progress for this project since too long time. I have been developing in vs.net for a long time, so that is a plus to me.

Nice thing is that it supplies ready-for-market apps (talking Android). For now, not having the possibility to set permissions for the App is a deal breaker. Edit: Why would I ask the user to allow to use the GPS when it is not used in the App.

I am looking who can do both App permissions and provide the apk. Icenium has the advantage that I can access my code at home, at the office and at an internet café.
0
Jan-Dirk
Top achievements
Rank 1
answered on 27 Jun 2012, 12:49 PM
One more thing I feel the need for is plug-ins in Icenium (pushwoosh, but also others).
0
sdobrev
Top achievements
Rank 1
answered on 27 Jun 2012, 04:21 PM
Both Store/Release builds and device capability settings are very high in our backlog. Plugins support is just bellow them :) We are anticipating the 2.0 release of Cordova that will have more mature plugins support.
0
Jan-Dirk
Top achievements
Rank 1
answered on 27 Jun 2012, 05:29 PM
That sounds great! Since Cordova 1.9 went in RC or beta this week, I assume that it won't take long for 2.0
0
Brant
Top achievements
Rank 1
answered on 28 Feb 2013, 03:07 AM
I for one would rather use Cordova + Kendo in Visual Studio than learn and use an inferior IDE that may one day be good but right now lacks in a lot of ways. For one thing, VS already has most of the stuff people in this forum are complaining about. Like Drag-Drop UI design, TypeScript support, great intellisense (including for jQuery and Kendo), support for TFS, GIT, SVN. I like the idea behind ICENIUM, but it seems that we already have most of it without having to get used to something new. I just don't understand why you are making a mediocre IDE when you could have made a great plugin.
0
Matt
Top achievements
Rank 1
answered on 02 Mar 2013, 10:24 PM
I've been using Icenium for a few months now. In the beginning, Mist and Graphite were great ways to get a prototype app up and running. As I'm getting into heavier development, I'm starting to feel like my progress is being slowed by the need to use these IDEs instead of Visual Studio. Partially because they're just not quite there in terms of functionality, and partially because I'm just more familiar with Visual Studio.

To Telerk's credit, you guys have been excellent in responding to our feedback and rolling out new features for the IDEs. The problem though, is that everyone has priorities of which features they need the most. What I need might not ncessarily be a top priority for Telerik or the majority of other developers. Without being able to choose our own IDE, we can't work with a development environment suited to our needs.

So here's where I'm at. It's near the end of the free period for Icenium, and I'm not sure if I want to continue with it. I love Ion, and Icenium's cloud computing. I like being able to open Graphite or Mist wherever I am, and work in my projects. Thinking long term though, I don't know if I want to be tied to a single IDE. I also don't know if I want to develop and maintain production applications with an IDE that's not ready for it.

I'm sure in time, Mist and Graphide will be there - but until they are, I think myself and other developers might start looking at alternatives that allow us to use Visual Studio.
0
Stefan Dobrev
Telerik team
answered on 04 Mar 2013, 11:01 AM
Hi Matt,

Thanks for your thorough and honest post. We do really appreciate this kind of feedback and having such is what will make our platform Icenium even better.

In order to be make the discussion more constructive I would like you to answer the following two questions:
  • What are the issues (missing features, broken workflows, etc.) you find in Graphite/Mist that are of most pain for you?
  • What pieces of the Icenium platform you expect to find a future VS extension - cloud build, simulator, deploy on device, etc?

Thanks again for your feedback and keep it coming. 


All the best,
Stefan Dobrev
the Telerik team

Share feedback and vote for features on our Feedback Portal.
Want some Kendo UI online training - head over to Pluralsight.
0
Matt
Top achievements
Rank 1
answered on 05 Mar 2013, 03:50 AM
Stefan,

Thanks for the response; I'd be glad to provide some feedback. The biggest pains I'm feeling with Graphite / Mist right now are the things that impede the rapid development I would expect in VS. I understand both IDEs have code completion, but I feel like IntelliSense is much more responsive than the current autocompletion. The autocompletion in Mist and Graphite seems to be hit and miss. For example, I don't believe it will show fadeIn or fadeOut for a jQuery element.

There's a lot of things that I would almost feel like I'm nitpicking if I point out, because they're small, but really save time. For example, in most editors, after doing a search and closing the search, you can use F3 or Shift+F3 to find next/previous without opening the Find dialog again. There's the larger things that speed up development too - I believe someone mentioned above Drag & Drop UI building.

What it really boils down to is that the IDE market is already pretty saturated, and Visual Studio is an extremely mature product. Many developers (myself included) have spent a lot of time getting it set up the way we want, with the plugins we want. I don't speak for everyone, but personally I'm not looking for a new IDE - I'm looking for technologies that simplify cross-platform development.

To answer your second question of what I would look for in a VS extension - my first priority would be accessing the things that make Icenium unique, and the things I use on a daily basis. Expecially the simulator and how easy it is to deploy on device. There are countless other VS plugins that others might be looking for - collaboration, project management, agile planning, time tracking, code analysis, more advanced source control, bug tracking, etc.

You guys are off to a great start with what you've done with Ion, cloud building, Cordova, and the simulator. Taking the IDE out of the equation, Icenium would be an easy decision for me over the alternatives. However, knowing that going with Icenium also means giving up the flexibility I have with Visual Studio, it's going to be a lot tougher to sell until Mist and Graphite are more mature.

If I may offer some feedback, I honestly think Icenium will be much more successful if Telerik focuses more on what makes it unique - continue building on the platform - and gives developers the freedom to use their own IDE.
0
Brant
Top achievements
Rank 1
answered on 05 Mar 2013, 03:14 PM
Matt has really hit it on the head with his post. It isn't any one big feature that makes the use of yet another IDE so painful. Instead it is all the little things that we are used to in our everyday workflow. Some more examples, windowed editing ( more than one code window showing at once), find and replace (in all its wonderful glory), ability to drag files from windows explorer to the project, already established hotkeys... I could go on, but I think the point is made.
I do get excited when Stefan starts to talk about a 'future' extension. I would love to have the cloud synchronization and build that can be downloaded to a device. I also agree that incorporating some kind of a drag and drop UI builder would be critical for the success of the Icenium. jQuery mobile has one, and so do others. It really does make creating the UI so much easier as the pure HTML doesn't really reflect what is going to be drawn on the screen anyways. 
0
Trond
Top achievements
Rank 1
answered on 07 Mar 2013, 12:03 PM
Sorry, you are faaaar away from the quality in Visual Studio.

I want my backend project to be Integrated in the same IDE, consistent chortcut across client/server programming, snippets, resharper, ,nuget... and the list goes on.

I use Icenium today, but I do some "crazy" integration (file copy + copy paste), not happy with it....
0
Stefan Dobrev
Telerik team
answered on 07 Mar 2013, 01:35 PM
We heard you guys load and clear. Thanks sharing your perspective with us and for your immense feedback. I can assure you we will not stand still. Stay tuned.

 

All the best,
Stefan Dobrev
the Telerik team

Share feedback and vote for features on our Feedback Portal.
Want some Kendo UI online training - head over to Pluralsight.
0
Jon
Top achievements
Rank 1
answered on 07 Mar 2013, 02:02 PM
Have you seen http://www.viziapps.com? An it's approach to an IDE?


0
zac
Top achievements
Rank 1
answered on 13 Mar 2013, 09:44 PM
+1000 to Matt's last post (and kudos to him for being so diplomatic about what I would consider a no-brainer issue).

People already have extremely mature IDEs in which they've invested thousands of hours.  There are no voices crying out in the wilderness for alternatives to Eclipse or VS.  (I just noticed the icenium .proj file is an MSBuild file anyway!)

The cloud build platform is nice, particularly the Ion iOS shim, but having to switch to Telerik's IDE just to publish something is not worth the effort when I could just use PhoneGap Build instead.  A VS plug extension would be a different story.
0
Tim
Top achievements
Rank 1
answered on 03 Apr 2013, 10:02 AM
I personally think that icenium should be an isolated shell of visual studio. It would allow for your custom awesomeness that is this product and the flexability of VS. Your custom IDE is good no doubt, but there is quite a bit missing. Currently I am writing my app in VS and just bringing it into icenium and then playing around on minor tweeks from there. Mainly because there is no .less support, which i am sure you intend to get ;) but also because VS a lot of what i want and what i am familiar with. 
0
Chris
Top achievements
Rank 1
answered on 31 May 2013, 07:44 PM
Though late to the party, I agree that having to learn your IDE only wastes my time. VS plug in would make me much more likely to adopt your tool. As is, some things I have discovered in just the first few days - so perhaps I have missed HOW to do things, but that itself is part of the issue because I ALREADY KNOW how to do everything in both Eclipse and (better) in VS...
1. Screen size will not expand in height past 1 screen. I routinely work on a four screen system and cannot stand such a limited view of code (easy in VS)
2. Find and replace window does not always float - so it at times HIDES the very thing I am trying to find or replace (easy in VS)
3. Find and replace does not seem to permit find and replace through all files at once (easy in VS)
4. Cannot drag drop files from project to my desktop computer - PLEASE DO NOT FORCE ME TO PUBLISH SO I CAN GET THE .APK so I can unzip it to get my files... really! (easy in VS)
5. No ability to select an identifier and right mouse and "find definition) (easy in VS)
6. No easy way to do a quick edit on an image - cause it's not on my machine but in the cloud, AND no easy way to copy it out to disk and put it back, AND no built in image editor at all (easy in VS)
7. Everlive is not really integrated into the IDE - just a quick hack - because if I try to edit anything in the Data Navigator, it just pulls up the website with Everlive rather than a true IDE connection
8. Maybe because I'm new I don't see how - but no easy click to make a breakpoint. As far as I can tell, no immediate window...

I am certain as I go on, I will find all kinds of other things that are not as finely done as the mature platform of VS. Yet the major point is in a different direction:

1. You guys have always done a good job of ADDING TO the Microsoft environment. That is what you are good at. COMPETING with Microsoft seems foolish. 
2. Developing is HARD WORK. Introducing a new IDE just makes it more painful. If push comes to shove, I will abandon Icenium in favor of VS because so many things are more difficult there - and worst of all I have to learn something new unnecessarily.
3. I love the simulator, one source for multiple platforms, etc... and the HTML5 etc IDE is not yet where it should be... that is why I am even looking.

Thanks for listening. I hope you continue your efforts because I've always liked the Telerik products.

CW


0
David Silveria
Top achievements
Rank 1
answered on 31 May 2013, 08:57 PM
Visual Studio integration is coming by the end of the year, they mentioned that at the webinar, so patience is a virtue.
0
Tim
Top achievements
Rank 1
answered on 01 Jun 2013, 07:23 AM
Could you perhaps provide a link to that webinar?

Thanks
0
Steve
Telerik team
answered on 03 Jun 2013, 07:27 AM
Hi guys,

David is right, we would be working on Visual Studio support so you can develop Icenium apps in your favorite IDE. Here is a link to the Icenium Keynote for those of you who missed it.

Regards,
Steve
Telerik

Don't miss the Icenium May Release Keynote - sign up now!
Share feedback and vote for features on our Feedback Portal.
Tags
Feedback & Suggestions
Asked by
Emanuele
Top achievements
Rank 1
Answers by
Clemri
Top achievements
Rank 1
sdobrev
Top achievements
Rank 1
Emanuele
Top achievements
Rank 1
Sean
Top achievements
Rank 1
Jan-Dirk
Top achievements
Rank 1
Brant
Top achievements
Rank 1
Matt
Top achievements
Rank 1
Stefan Dobrev
Telerik team
Trond
Top achievements
Rank 1
Jon
Top achievements
Rank 1
zac
Top achievements
Rank 1
Tim
Top achievements
Rank 1
Chris
Top achievements
Rank 1
David Silveria
Top achievements
Rank 1
Steve
Telerik team
Share this question
or