So, an interesting idea occurred to me. POV-Ray uses an existing IDE 
framework for it's Windows version.

I wonder, then, what it would be like to put the VStudio shell on 
POV-Ray. I've been kind of playing with the isolated shell, and it's 
rather flexible. It would give those of us who are familiar with the IDE 
a means of working with POV-Ray that feels familiar.

This is by no means a "lets make this official", but more of a, "I'm 
trying this as an experiment, so lets see how this goes."

My thoughts are this:

* Having a project type that would allow the user to gather .inc files 
together with the scene file.

* Being able to use VS2010's templates, and auto-complete suggestions to 
take some of the functionality of the insert menu. kind of like you can 
type sw<tab><tab> and it pops a template in the code, you fill in some 
blanks, and you're done!

* The tooltips and such for parameters, etc.

* Possible to use debug engine for debugging parser macros?

* Using configuration settings to set command-line options for the 
render engine.

* Ability to dock the preview window

* Using error list/output windows.

... etc. It may be a monster learning curve for me, and it may never 
come to fruition, but it could be interesting.

-- 
~Mike

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> I wonder, then, what it would be like to put the VStudio shell on
> POV-Ray. I've been kind of playing with the isolated shell, and it's
> rather flexible. It would give those of us who are familiar with the IDE
> a means of working with POV-Ray that feels familiar.

I didn't realise it was possible to do this (I mead use the VStudio 
shell for other things). But I always thought that editors have moved on 
since the POV editor was written, and VStudio is pretty good.

Do you need any particular version to do this, I only have the free 
express versions.

> * Being able to use VS2010's templates, and auto-complete suggestions to
> take some of the functionality of the insert menu. kind of like you can
> type sw<tab><tab> and it pops a template in the code, you fill in some
> blanks, and you're done!
>
> * The tooltips and such for parameters, etc.

This would be the most useful for me. Often I know the functionality 
that I want and the object keyword to use, but have forgotten the exact 
wording of the parameters (is it "max_trace" or "max_trace_depth" or 
???). With tooltips you could just type "max" and then you'd get a 
context-sensitive list of valid parameters with "max" in the name.

Would speed up scene development massively IMO.

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On 9/11/2012 10:57 AM, scott wrote:
>> I wonder, then, what it would be like to put the VStudio shell on
>> POV-Ray. I've been kind of playing with the isolated shell, and it's
>> rather flexible. It would give those of us who are familiar with the IDE
>> a means of working with POV-Ray that feels familiar.
>
> I didn't realise it was possible to do this (I mead use the VStudio
> shell for other things). But I always thought that editors have moved on
> since the POV editor was written, and VStudio is pretty good.
>
> Do you need any particular version to do this, I only have the free
> express versions.
>

Yep. It's possible. If not a bit of a learning curve when dealing with 
VStudio.

To use it, you don't need Visual Studio installed as far as I can tell.

 From MS's documentation:

> The Visual Studio isolated shell allows you to create stand-alone applications
> that can run side-by-side with other versions of Visual Studio. It is used
> primarily to host specialized tools that can use Visual Studio services but
> also have a customized appearance and branding. Visual Studio features and
> menu command groups can be easily turned on and off. Application titles,
> application icons, and splash screens are fully customizable. For a
> list of customizable features, see Customizing the Isolated Shell.

So, that looks at least somewhat promising.

> This would be the most useful for me. Often I know the functionality
> that I want and the object keyword to use, but have forgotten the exact
> wording of the parameters (is it "max_trace" or "max_trace_depth" or
> ???). With tooltips you could just type "max" and then you'd get a
> context-sensitive list of valid parameters with "max" in the name.
>
> Would speed up scene development massively IMO.
>

Yep.. been on my wishlist for some time :)


-- 
~Mike

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On 9/11/2012 10:47 AM, Mike Raiford wrote:
> So, an interesting idea occurred to me. POV-Ray uses an existing IDE
> framework for it's Windows version.

This is actually proving to be a bit more difficult than I thought ;) 
There's a pretty steep learning curve with the IDE framework, just 
getting a working project system is a bit of a PITA. But, if I persevere 
it could be rather neat.

There's still a few Visual Studio warts that I'll have to spackle over, 
such as "Class View", and the toolbox is probably going to be rather 
useless.

Debug at this point won't be an option, so that needs to go, and 
probably a few other bits and pieces here and there.

There is one thing I don't really like at all, but is a necessary evil. 
The splash screen shows "Powered By Visual Studio", which obscures the 
copyright of the splash screen image.

Oh well. That could probably be dealt with.

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Finally! Got the project system to enumerate its items

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