Let's have some IDE fun

During any given day I might be in 6 different IDEs. Eclipse, IntelliJ, Android Studio, Xcode, AppCode, and Aptana. Generally I have an instance of Sublime text editor running too. I use them for the following things:

Eclipse - Java server side work (our REST services)

IntelliJ - Java one off utility work

Android Studio - Java Android mobile development

Xcode and AppCode - Objective C iOS mobile development (some Mac work too)

Aptana - JavaScript with AngularJS, bootstrap and other libs

Sublime - taking notes, small file edits including .gitignore and other system type files

At times it can drive you crazy. I use a Mac at work due to my iOS needs and depending on the IDE I might use CMD+S to save or Ctrl+S. Since I have a PC background and I switch to Ctrl+S at home in any IDE I am in when there. I screw up the keystrokes at times but generally have a feel for which IDE I am in at any given moment.

Eclipse is the old standby I have use for years. There are a ton of plugins for it to do nearly anything but you can't always get them to work as expected or even together. We just switched from SVN to GIT at work. Probably need to throw out the SVN plugins as I will not be using them and no real need for them to load up each time. Also the menu system gets a bit cluttered. Heck it might be a good time to start with a fresh Eclipse install as I also have the Android plug-ins running and I have switched to Android Studio for that work. Code completion works ok but is not spectacular. Refactoring works and has not crashed on me. The editor is fast and has a ton of features.

IntelliJ has a great Dracula dark theme built right in. I run a dark theme in Eclipse too but it does not theme everything perfectly. I handle one off programming in IntelliJ. Testing code bits, working on small stand alone utilities. I could do some of that in Eclipse too but I tend to have the server stuff open there and switching workspaces in Eclipse is slow as it is a full reload of the IDE. I could use workspaces in Eclipse and I do at times but our server stuff is rather large so I prefer to leave it sit by itself.

Android Studio is an IDE I like a lot as it is IntelliJ based. There have been some growing pains with the constant updating to the newest version of gradle but in general the IDE is superior to Eclipse. It has better code completion, a better preview window for your XML based layouts, shows the colors and icons in the gutter, makes it easier to convert string into the string table, shows the replacement string in code instead of the string ID and a bunch of other smaller bits of "thanks for doing that" areas. I would say that Eclipse is faster at building and getting the code on a device but I am willing to forgo that speed for all the other features Android Studio offers. It works well with Genymotion, the device emulator I use.

Xcode is my least favorite IDE of the bunch. I have to use it for iOS development but it is behind the times in areas like refactoring and its code completion tends to not be as helpful as other IDEs. Sure, you get a full list of what is possible but it does not move the most commonly used ones to the top of the list. It also crashes on me more than any of the other IDEs especially when it comes to refactoring. I have had it crash when refactoring a variable that only appears twice in a 20 line method. It makes you scared to use it. It was also terrible when it comes to using SVN. GIT is much better. I wish it would offer to automatically include needed H files instead of my manually moving to the top of the file to type them in.

AppCode is also from IntelliJ. I use it when I am doing heavy Objective C coding when I already have the UI in place. So far its refactoring has worked every time crash free. It has more intelligent code suggestions, if you add a reference to an object it will prompt to add the proper H file, it handles CocoaPods nicely. There are so so many areas where it is coder friendly. Sadly it does not have an Interface Builder replacement so you end up back over in Xcode to handle those chores. They sync together without a hitch and both use the same project files making moving between them relatively painless.

Aptana has some nice code completion aspects for CSS and HTML along with a solid JSHint tie in. Since our server build does not allow JSHint errors to pass it makes it so much easier to catch them before you push to master. It is Eclipse based but focused on JavaScript which means I could end up cluttering it with plugins but so far I have kept it down to the minimum I need for JS programming. I have used this IDE flavor for the least amount of time of those listed but with my heavier involvement in JavaScript I have been very happy with it.

Sublime is my go to editor. I leave multiple tabs open with "To Do" lists for each of the projects I have going at any time. This allows me to type in quick notes so I don't forget something because people tend to drift in and out of my office with suggestions the mobile app, to share some tidbit of useful information about the server, a GIT command or something else helpful. I have a file for general work info, one for Android and one for iOS info open all the time and then I open and close other files as needed. The color coding support in Sublime for a multitude of file formats is awesome. I also use it to pretty print XML and JSON when I copy / paste server responses out of the Chrome web tools window. 

It can fry your mind to shift in and out of so many programming languages and IDEs in any given day. Of course I try to keep it to a minimum but that is not always in my control. My preference would be to stick in the world of mobile doing Android and iOS development. Right now that is on hold so I am helping out on the JavaScript team. Lots of time on Stack Overflow and doing web searches as my brain does not have a solid cache of JavaScript programming idioms and patterns. Looks like Aptana it is for the next few months.

Sharing a keyboard and Mouse between a Mac and PC

My main development box is a beefy dual screen PC. I do a lot of Mac work too. I test all our WebStart Java based code on the Mac to make sure controls are sized correctly, accelerator keys work as intended etc. That is all done with IntelliJ. I also write all the mobile code for iOS devices via Xcode and Android devices via Eclipse meaning I switch around a lot.

I tried VNC for a few days but ran into too many short comings. I have the Mac hooked up to my second LCD and switching video inputs is easy enough but hauling over the mouse and keyboard was annoying.

Yesterday over lunch I picked up a KVM at Microcenter. Box listed it at $29.99 but it rang up at $12.99 at the register. This is the TrendNet 2-port KVM Switch Kit TK-207K. Simple piece of hardware about the size of a deck of cards, just a little thicker and wider. I plugged in my USB generic mouse and MS Natural Keyboard 4000 to the device and plugged in the included outbound VGA (not using) / USB cables to the PC and the Mac. There is a 1 and 2 button on top of the box you press to toggle between machines. If I am on the PC I can hit Scroll Lock twice to go to the Mac but it does not appear to work from Mac back to PC, instead it dims the screen. Press the button is no big deal.

Both machines seem to be happy doing the switch. I can now run everything off the one mouse and keyboard which is making life much simpler. The other big advantage - the MacBook Pro only has two USB ports. I had the mouse in one and the keyboard in the other. I only need one for the KVM switch. This allows me to plug in a USB key, the iPad or whatever without pulling the keyboard.

Here are the minor issues:

1) On the Mac the main screen in the laptop screen. Everything wants to start on that screen even if a program is on the second screen it wants to show pop-ups / associated windows on the primary screen.

2) Just put Lion on the Mac so I could upgrade to latest Xcode. By default Lion does scrolling opposite of what Snow Leopard did. This makes it act like a iOS device which is fine when using touch pad but annoying when using mouse especially when you switch between it and Windows during the day. I turned off that setting.

3) Can't double scroll lock to switch back to PC side.

4) Wish I could run both my external LCD screens of the Mac even if it meant shutting down the laptop display. If that worked I could switch to just using the Mac for email, IM, IntelliJ for Java, Eclipse for Android and Xcode for iOS. The laptop display is OK but not positioned on my desk in a good spot right now. Once you get used to two 24" displays you don't want to go back to a 15" display.

Switched text editors


I had been using PSPad on the PC for the longest time. I then switched to NotePad++ and then after reading a number of glowing reviews of Sublime Text 2 I switched to that. Seems to work out nicely on both the PC and Mac. I had been struggling to find a good text editor on the Mac and was using JEdit. Using the same editor on both machines is very handy.

I tend to leave a text editor open on my machine at all times with multiple tabs going. Right now I have 5 tabs running - Work info, Android Notes, Charge Capture Mobile, Front Office, Tablet Calendar - one for each project I am in the middle of working on. During the day if someone stops by with a suggestion I type it right into the appropriate file. Maybe I come up with some wild idea - type it in. It is my way of keeping massive to do list, future notes, things to investigate and random thoughts all where I can find them easily.

The Mac will take over my Tablet Calendar notes as that is where I will be doing that work for the time being until I start the Android conversion. I also end up opening source code from other projects to steal code snippets so having a bonus text editor open is very handy. Its other big job is grep. Any text editor must have "find in files" to be useful to me.