Frustrating to use

[Bruce_D_1]

It's great if you have no other tools to use, but otherwise, it's a bit frustrating.I would prefer having the option for a command line interface - I would prefer to edit an xml or yaml with the project config and make the build part of my standard pipeline, so I didn't have to open the xdk gui just to create a build.

The gui works ok with demo's and hello world, but when I import a real-world project, it tanks. It can take 10 minues to open a project. The edior is better than notepad, but even so, I don't use it, it lacks productivity tools I depend on- things like grunt integration, testing harness integration, etc., and little things such as a toggle case on the edit menu is missing. 

Realistically, there is no way I would ever stop using IntelliJ or NetBeans in favor of the xdk editor, the gap is too large. I am sure other's would say the same of their preferred environment, whether it's VIM or VS

[Anusha_M_Intel1]

Thank You for your feedback Bruce. We are all ears and try to improve on our future releases based on users feedback. In the meantime, your real-world project taking 10 minutes to load is something we can try to work on. Would you mind sending me the project so I can see what the issue is?

Which version of XDK are you using?

[Swati_S_Intel1]

Hi Bruce,

Thanks for your feedback. And sorry to hear your frustration. I understand that you prefer to use XDK's build system alone, but unfortunately XDK is an integrated environment and build cannot be used standalone with CLI. The build settings come from the XDK project settings that are generated at project creation time and from the project set up, manually changing those settings often cause build failure or errors that cannot be caught until the app is deployed, so it is best to leave those to be managed by XDK.

Regarding importing a project, I agree it takes long time to import a real-world project but it shouldn't be 10 mins. If that's the case there might be something wrong. We have nailed down one issue with the slowness and that happens if you are on Mac and you leave XDK idle for sometime and then pick it up, everything in XDK becomes slow. This is an NW issue and will be fixed in the next release. If that's the case with your try restarting XDK and import upon a fresh launch. 

About the productivity tools, you can use Brackets bower extension that is integrated into XDK. You can include grunt extension from here : https://github.com/dhategan/brackets-grunt. There are some issues being fixed for grunt as of now. 

Regarding the editor, everyone has their preferred editor. You can use editor of your choice. There are other values that XDK provides - emulation, on device testing and debugging and cross platform build - all these are important for your cross platform app development and I hope you can use them effectively. 

If you have any other specific issues/questions, we would be happy to help!

Swati

[Barry_Johnson]

FWIW I share a number of your feelings. I actually sent the XDK team a note not long ago suggesting they deprioritize the GUI-builder and instead apply resources to more tool automation. I specifically pointed to easy Grunt integration as a quick win because the number of Grunt plugins. An example I used was just being able to use ES6 easily in the projects.

I do want to make a comment on the editor though, which I think is pretty good (I am an IntelliJ "Ultima" user as well). It is actually just Adobe's Brackets editor wrapped into the larger IDE. I suspect a number of the features you are missing in it can be added back via plugins. Somewhat inconveniently not every Brackets plugin is directly available via the XDK's extension manager, but you can usually download the ZIP and drag & drop install other ones.

Last thing though: the real benefit of the IDE side of the tool (i.e. excluding the build server integration) is the cross-platform on-device testing, which I have found to be great. Supposedly they will at some point also support using third-party plugins with the on-device debugging and possibly AppPreview, which will be nice features.

[Chris_P_Intel]

 I actually sent the XDK team a note not long ago suggesting they deprioritize the GUI-builder and instead apply resources to more tool automation.

It's not an either-or proposition. There are different teams working on different aspects. And, just as not every user appreciates the GUI builder, so will not every user appreciate tool automation.

When looking at the HTML mobile app workflow, the XDK firstly aims to provide solutions where there are none existing today, and secondly to smooth over places where a workflow is awkward. But if there are existing tools that do some task well, then it seems to us to make more sense to encourage the users to use that tool and interoperate with it, rather than replace it.  That's why there is no grunt or source control integration (yet).  

For example, our project structure and build system interoperates smoothly alongside the Cordova CLI.  So, if you prefer, you can make and manage a project with that tool, and then open the XDK atop it for debugging, or UI creation, or building, or profiling, or whatever other XDK feature you might need.

That said,  we have a lot of room for improvement and a long way yet to go. And, user feedback is critical. If there are features you want, please let us know. And, if your workflow could be smoothed out someplace, let us know that too.   The more specific the request, the easier for us -- less guesswork.

Chris - Design Tool Engineer 

[PaulF_IntelCorp]

@Bruce -- it sounds like the delays you are experiencing are due to the built-in Brackets editor. Although it is not obvious, you do not need to use that editor to use the XDK. I regularly use Sublime to edit my code and then just use the Projects tab, Emulate tab, Debug tab and Build tab for the rest of my work. Occasionally, I will use the Brackets editor, but mostly just use your favorite editor and tools.

The XDK is meant to be co-operative with other tools, not replace them. We try to minimize the impact of the XDK on your source files, so that you can use other tools alongside the XDK.

p.s. If you are using a Mac, we have uncovered a bug in node-webkit that slows down file operations on OS X, it's not clear when we can incorporate a fix, because patching node-webkit is not easy and upgrading that part of the system affects a lot of components. But there are efforts underway to improve the performance of the XDK.