Note: Deprecated!

Note: this is the second part of in a group of 3.

N2D is still in proto type stage, so there are plenty of idiosyncrasies to work around. Here are some tips and tricks that might make things a bit easier.

• When there is lots of code visible, things can slow down fast. (fixed)  To avoid this, use the drill down/up arrows on some statements like conditional statements to close as much as possible.  If you are drilling down and need to see more code, you can always open sub items into a new code editor.  This will speed up things dramatically. You can do this on conditionals, their parts and code blocks
• Be careful with copying items around (or using shift drag). The editor displays items that are used in multiple places, but you can still be surprised when you change something to an argument only to see it changed it multiple places. The same goes for breakpoints: if an item is used in multiple places and it has a breakpoint defined, it will break everywhere the statement is used.  Keep this in mind while using copy or shift-drag.
• I use the sync with explorer command (F4) a lot. This was mainly because the copy paste system wasn’t working yet.  But it’s still useful I think: it’s a quick route into the explorer.
• The Toolbox is really useful to build code.  If you select the ‘Instructions’ section, you get a good overview of all the available instructions, grouped by functionality.  To quickly collapse and expand the groups, you can use the context menu of the toolbar.
• It’s possible to add items to the toolbox, although this currently has to be done by hacking the “XXXdesigner.xml” file.

Final note

There are still a number of shortcomings in the editor that need to be worked out, more specifically:

• CPU and memory usage are a problem resulting in a very slow view when there is lot’s of visible data. This needs be solved by a custom control. (Done)
  
• Keyboard entry functionality, similar to the flow editor must still be implemented, this should speed up code editing significantly, compared to the all drag-drop or copy-paste solution.
• Clean up the views some so that they are clearer, compacter,…

Next up will be the debugger, I guess.