Interview
Why did you join this project?
I had been programming with MS Visual C++ and was looking for a free replacement that would allow me to compile cross-platform. wx-devcpp was the most "MS Visual C++"-like and my first program built correctly right out of the box. I thought it had/has great potential.What contributions have you made?
I had never programmed in either Delphi or wxWidgets before so my initial work was just responding to a post by Guru on help with packaging the installer and maintaining the CVS sources. However, I quickly found how easy it was to fix bugs and then I moved to adding some new features. My first new "feature" was adding the ability to change the project name, class name, and author name when a new project was created (before that all new projects were called NewProject1 with Guru as the default author). Other features I've added:1. Added component alignment (left, right, center) to the visual designer form.
2. Added string translation (wxT and _T) to the wx-generated C++ code
3. Added drag-and-drop re-ordering of the menu items
4. Added cut/copy/paste/and delete commands to the properties panel.
5. Added a user comments field to the component C++ code
6. Added wxMemo->LoadFile
7. Added wxValidator
8. Allowed arrow keys to move components on the designer form.
9. Added XRC/XML support
What features do you most want to see in wxDev-C++?
I'd like to see dynamic loading of wx components. This new feature will allow users to add their own components to the visual designer at runtime. Esteban had a version working in the past, but wasn't 100% satisfied with it. It should make it into version 6.11.In what areas do you think others could help?
Documentation. In my opinion, a great software product needs great documentation. Yet, developers often feel too busy programming to do proper documentation (i.e. docs even a newbie can follow). One good place to start is to create a new tutorial for the product. Another good way to do it is to create an on-line video demonstrating how to use the IDE (rather than writing the steps down). Both of these are as valuable as code and easy to do for even a newbie. They're also great ways to find bugs in the program execution and in the program design.