This page documents revisions made to the Curl developer's tools. A task force was created to address the urgent need for improved developer tools. We started by defining users categories and developing use cases. Since time was a crucial factor, we then moved directly to identify a handful of use cases that could be addressed within one release cycle.

The following sequence of screen shots demonstrates the situation at the start of this effort. Slides 1 - 8 show that the old development environment was a loosely connected series of separate windows. Paths to simple functionality ware obscure and cumbersome. Following this are screen shots of the new less idiosyncratic, more integrated environment are shown. Slides 9 - 11 show that the same tasks are easier to complete in the new version.

While the features of the new developer environment are hardly innovative, they were new and important improvements to old tools, which were crude and rudimentary in comparison.

1. Old version. Starts in document viewer.

2. Getting to the Editor

To access the editor, use the File / New Source Editor command, which opens a new window for the editor.

3. This is what the editor window looks like.

4. There are many other auxiliary windows.

In the old tools, every task requires a new, single purpose window. One example, the break point list window, is shown below.

5. Opening a file is cumbersome. You first get an Open URL dialog box.

6. From the Open URL dialog box open The Choose file dialog box.

7. The newly opened file is presented in an additional editor window.

8. Run a program with an error and more windows pop up.

9. New version is much simpler

In the new version, a single window integrates many of the windows in the old interface.

There is a main window which integrates the editor window, project management, breakpoints, compiler errors, and diagnostic output. The new version introduces a concept of a project that organizes the many files that an application may use.

10. Open file dialog opens without intermediary.

11. Error display part of main window.

Editor automatically scrolls to the text of the first error.