About IDEA L&F and other stuff...

At first I want to say that I very much like all features of the IDE and I feel very comfortable in it, writing Java code but there are two major things that make me not to use IDEA as my development envoirnment:
1) The IDE looks like a toy for kids....all those color icons make a professional coder laugh and ignore all the mighty features of this ide. I think it needs a new, more clean L&F design as a high-tech tool corresponding to the ease and useful thing in it. Everyone glances with admiration at the latest Mercedes and laughs at the Jolly VW Bug with pink circles:)) In Bulgaria we have a saying:"The lunatic at gay-colors is delighted":))However it's not so important - may be your product is not targeted at the hard coders used to write in Emacs.

2) In my work I use JNI a lot. The editting of C source code in IDEA is equal to edit it with Notepad. The syntax coloring is easy to set but there are no more facilities like these in the Eclipse platform for example - outline functions/members browsing and so on... It will be nice to browse the C source in IDEA as Java does.

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Mladen,

I had exactly the same reaction initially to the l&f during the EAP, but
most other EAPers liked it. My bigger worry was that lots of people
would be turned off by the toy-like l&f like you are, but you are the
first person I've heard voice the same complaint. Over the months, the
l&f has grown on me, and now I too like.

Jon

Mladen Stoev wrote:

1) The IDE looks like a toy for kids....all those color icons make a professional coder laugh and ignore all the mighty features of this ide. I think it needs a new, more clean L&F design as a high-tech tool corresponding to the ease and useful thing in it. Everyone glances with admiration at the latest Mercedes and laughs at the Jolly VW Bug with pink circles:)) In Bulgaria we have a saying:"The lunatic at gay-colors is delighted":))However it's not so important - may be your product is not targeted at the hard coders used to write in Emacs.

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i think there is a skin plugin that will allow you to choose between many L&F. You could also change to motif, it's pretty basic.

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I don't complain.I just share my thoughts and maybe an idea of adding something like theme support for this ide that replaces the colorful icons as a first step( the TODO icon is my favourite:). I don't whant my post to sound as a mock.
I repeat that i admire all the features in IDEA.

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there are two major things that make me not to use IDEA as my development envoirnment:
1) The IDE looks like a toy for kids....


LOL! Choosing the development environment by the looks of it sounds like a very good idea indeed!

BTW: methinks IDEA looks good.

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Look man, when I estimate the qualities of a thing I use to mark the good and the bad things in it, the pluses and minuses, from my point of view. The same intuitive reaction comes to me when i look after a girl ;)
Do you use the same method to pick girls(boys)?

BTW. METHINKS IDEA features are GREAT.

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I agree with you, looks +do +matter. You don't want to look at something ugly for x hours a day. :)

When I started with IDEA, I found it a bit too colorfull. However, now that I am used to it, I find other IDEs look extremely dull... The IDEA L&F also seems to be based on the XP look & feel, which is also toy-ish.

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The same intuitive reaction comes to me when i look
after a girl ;)


It comes to me too, but it's because they are girls and not computer programs.. ;)

Do you use the same method to pick girls(boys)?


I'm steady.. No need to pick girls anymore. Used to be fun though. The methods were highly dependant on intoxication level..

BTW. METHINKS IDEA features are GREAT.


Agree with you on that. A bit more speed here and there and it would be killer.

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