I’ve been working on a new program and thought this would be a great opportunity to share my progress and findings with others.

I’ve been working on an inventory application-turned-to-do-list-application for Android. For now, I’m writing and testing it in Windows. Although it’s incomplete, I thought I would take a break from the coding side and create the user interface, (GUI).

This would be my FIRST time ever designing a GUI so I figure the KISS method would be best suited (Keep It Stupidly Simple). I started up Eclipse Neon and followed a tutorial on creating a GUI for about… two minutes. Wouldn’t you know Eclipse Neon does NOT have any tools for building a GUI?

And so, ladies and germs, what was going to be my first blog post on my progress in my project has turned into a PSA about…

Incomplete Software.

The plugin for designing GUIs is available in every prior version of Eclipse (Mars, Luna, Keplar…) but NOT the latest version.

Looks like someone hit the Save button a little early. That’s right, the Other Voice has a bone to pick too.

Why is this a problem? Well, aside from me having to reinstall/configure a previous version of Eclipse, it gives the folks at Eclipse a bad reputation. It doesn’t look promising to consumers or those who utilize a product when its creators build upon it while omitting key features from previous versions.

Creating user interfaces for software is a key feature of Eclipse considering it is software that can be used for Java development. A similar instance of this was seen in 2002 when Game Freak released Pokemon Sapphire and Ruby for the GBA. But before that, let’s provide some context.

For those who were too old, or not alive at the time, Pokemon Silver (and Gold), the greatest Pokemon game(s) ever made, was/were released fall of 2000 on the Game Boy Color.

Silver ftw

One of the key features of these games was the Day/Night cycle whereby some of the game’s features would change based on the time of day. Certain characters would battle the player if seen outside during the night hours (6pm – 6am on the game clock). Different Pokemon would only come out during the day and others at night, and the coolest part was the way the color palette switched to darker colors during the evening. Then Game Freak did something…odd.

Fall of 2002, Pokemon Sapphire (and that other one) were released on the Game Boy Advance. It featured new Pokemon, Two-on-Two battles, even RUNNING!

Mind you, walking was the only option up until this point…

It even maintained the clock function from its predecessors. However, there was no longer a Day/Night cycle. It was day time, everywhere, all the time. Do you know how disappointing it was to see the sun out at 3am in this game? Similar to Eclipse Neon lacking the WindowBuilder plugin for creating user interfaces that was available in previous versions, Pokemon Sapphire was without a visual representation of night time. Even though it was a key feature in its predecessor.

Luckily, unlike the year 2002, I can turn to the internet to find a solution to this issue. With a quick something search, I found a few tutorials on how to install WindowsBuilder. Since they each have such mixed reviews, I will create my own tutorial and post it for you guys next week along with a bonus post about my experience with creating a GUI!

Eclipse reports that Neon is scheduled for an update in September.

Let’s hope they remember that WindowBuilder plugin…but that’d be insane!

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Coding Fanatic

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Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay