Proud Programmers Blog :: Is it just me? Domino Designer for Eclipse contains some copy/paste issues ...

Using the latest and greatest Lotus Notes 8.5.2 All Clients installation on a Windows 7 64-bit machine…

Let me start by saying that DDE is absolutely a huge step in the correct direction, and I wouldn’t even dream of going back. Just having a serious editor for my LotusScript classes is such a pro that I can’t ever go back to the old editor Smilefjes

But …. some issues almost drives me nuts …. and probably has to do with the way Notes expose LotusScript to Eclipse. That said, most of the problems below doesn’t occur when you edit Java code, so I guess this has to do with LotusScript tooling somehow…

First of all, almost no matter when you paste, Eclipse insist on placing the cursor at the end of the line …. This means if you copy parts of code, such as as the “viewNew” from the code below …

…copy “viewNew” to the clipboard, and now doubleclick on the “viewOriginal”, then paste;

… the cursor ends up after the Refresh method!!! I don’t like this. Paste and stay at the end of the pasted value, like any other normal editor!!

This is however, not really a huge problem, just annoying ….
Much worse problem! Sometimes the editor inserts the text in reverse order!!!!

Now I have a problem, this is super-annoying! Below you see how the editor insists on inserting the word “portal” backwards!

I start at (1), and at (2) I have written the first 4 characters “port”… and at (3) I have finished “portal”. Nice eh?!

When I try to delete this corky text, I always gets the next problem…
Something obviously goes completely wrong when deleteing text…

It always happened when I try to delete reversed text as descriped above, but sometimes it also happens when deleting text for no obvious reason;

By the way, which log?!? Certainly not log.nsf

I have also learnt the hard way that when I see such errors, Its best to quit the editor session to get out without corrupting the code.
The auto-identer goes haywire and takes forever…

As soon as I paste something, the auto-indenter normally indents the pasted text fast. Sometimes it needs a long time to think, and the above dialog box (2) stays on for 15-20 seconds, while the class-explorer marked with the arrow (1) blinks intensively.
The class-explorer suddenly doesn’t show all members…

This problem only occurs if I choose to continue to edit the code after error messages like…

The code compiles if I try to Recompile All LotusScript, but methods (typically the last ones added to a LotusScript-class) aren’t visible. Sometimes I have to end Notes completely (like kill to get rid of all processes …) in order to make DDE show them again. Hasn’t lost any code yet due to this problem, but it has sure scared me a lot (like “where the h…. is the latest method !!!!!” …)

Has anybody else experienced one or more of the issues above? I hope they get ironed out in future releases Smilefjes

Comments

1 - Hey there Robert. It is NOT just you. I experience every single thing you've pointed out all day long -in both 64 bit Win7 and 32 bit WinXP.

I love the new eclipse based designer, but all of these little annoyances can add up to some very big frustrations by the end of the day.

Sigh.

Posted by Devin Olson At 13:45:07 On 02.12.2010 | - Website - |

2 - I like it when you delete some things and it duplicates properties of others automatically. And sometimes it goes all MAC on me and the delete key will not work where backspace will!! Emoticon

Posted by Mark Hughes At 14:23:00 On 02.12.2010 | - Website - |

3 - You are not alone. The worse is when you get NullPointerExceptions....then you are close to loosing data.

The backward typing is the worst!

The code indentation is slow as **(^@%^#%&. Try doing CTRL-A + CTRL-I for any library over 2000 lines. Go out for a drinking binge...you have time.

Another issue is pasting a new class into a library. Even though you paste it before a specific one, the editor will put it after or at the end. That is an issue if current classes depend on it. Workaround: copy lib to notepad, paste new class where you want it...then copy all code back to lib.

Another annoyance: code completion not working when you have errors somewhere else in the code.

The list goes on an on :(

Posted by Patrick Picard At 14:40:28 On 02.12.2010 | - Website - |

4 - I had these issues too.
I also see sometimes the following annoyances:

Sometimes, after a "long" uptime of eclipse designer, i see no code when i open a script library. It shows like a complete new library with only the code inserted by template settings.

We are using Teamstudio CIAO. My Designer crashes after about an hour of working on a database which is under CIAO-Control. But this is probably a CIAO problem an not a designer problem.

A big issue for me too is the scrolling in the bookmarks. I use workspaces an have many database items in these workspaces. And when i have more than one database open and switch beteween these databases, the navigator of the workspaces sometimes scrolls really weired. That really drives me crazy. It should not scroll at all.
It also takes a very long time to open a large database with many design elements. My machine is a quad core 64 bit system with 8GB of RAM. So why can't the client use this power ???

Posted by Uwe Merkle At 09:37:31 On 03.12.2010 | - Website - |

5 - Same problems for me. Autocomplete is broken sometimes. Deleting rows gets an exception. Pasting a large JavaScript into a library (try Prototype) hangs the client. etc...

Posted by Johan Känngård At 10:47:57 On 22.12.2010 | - Website - |

6 - Same problem for me. Although I like Eclipse for Java and other editing, and was enthousiastic about editting classes in lotusscript in the new DDE, I have given up using it.

Glad that in the new designer you can through preferences still choose to use the classic lottusscript editor. Not as fancy, but at least it works....

Posted by Ronald Portier At 13:07:10 On 01.09.2011 | - Website - |

7 - I'm just glad it's not just me. I've experienced all of the issues listed above. Looking forward to the next release!

Posted by Bill Hanson At 18:07:33 On 08.03.2012 | - Website - |

8 - FYI: Switching to the old editor and back to the new one seems to clear these bugs for the current session (at least for a while).

Posted by Bill Hanson At 12:58:40 On 09.03.2012 | - Website - |

9 - Wow, I was searching a solution for the "pasting makes cursor jump to the end of the line"-issue only to find out that this exists for ages!

Seems not to trouble too many people or must really be difficult to fix. Emoticon

Luckily, I haven't experienced one of the other listed issues - yet.

But I have one more to add: Sometimes (cannot reproduce it at will) after typing the first letter of a word, the cursor jumps before that letter. oS ouy ritew ikel hist. Annoying. Emoticon

Posted by Mitch At 14:25:51 On 05.09.2012 | - Website - |

10 - I prefer the old editor. I get infrequent crashes in the new editor, and its just not worth it to restart my client application to get back to work.

Posted by Joe At 19:56:32 On 08.05.2014 | - Website - |

11 - 1. re. "pasting makes cursor jump to the end of the line" -- it's a confirmed regressive bug in 8.5 :( and I hate it too!

{ Link }

It is beyond distracting when I paste some code and I keep typing after pasting and expect the cursor to stay there like it would in NOTEPAD fer cryin out loud! I might just get in the habit to remind myself to first switch to the non-Eclipse IDE when I am about to dive into "creating" stuff...

2. re. those above describing LAG, slowness, etc. it might be your JVM/JRE settings, the default is for NOTES to use a very SMALL amount of RAM, but for DESIGNER you should increase the settings, see { Link }

Hope the above helps out others with the same issues!

Posted by Darren Semotiuk At 19:27:43 On 03.07.2014 | - Website - |