in am trying to learn C++ and php, but neither is as easy to use in my opinion, and i allready know vb, that is why i am using it.

C++ is much lower level than VB, hence its "difficulties". PHP is sort of a bastard child that doesn't know whether or not its OOP

Hence the repeated encouragement for you to learn Python, which is a very well designed language that is a snap to pick up and get coding with.

i know it is supposedly easy, but i (not sure why) proggramming it, maybe because there is no ide that i know of for it, that makes design of a gui much easier

Ah, a GUI RAD, that is not dependant upon the language, but upon the GUI API you are using. GTK, wxWidgets, etc.. all have their own RAD. I personally use DialogBlocks for wxWidgets when I want to generate C++ code, but wxGlade can also generate C++ and Python code, and GTK's Glade can generate code for GTK (C), GTKMM (C++), and pyGTK (Python) - although the later two options require extra programs

Visual Studio is the best RAD I've ever used, but only the Express Editions are free, and for C++ that means you are stuck with .NET - which is equally as horrible as VB. It wouldn't be as bad except that it requires all new containers. Apparantly MS is too good to use the STL classes

However, for just code editing, Wing-IDE is by far the BEST IDE I've ever had the privilage of using. It is simply AMAZING (Python only) - it practically reads your mind so that you don't even think about indentation (along with many, many aditional features) - you gotta try it out http://wingware.com/ (while it does cost money, just do the free trial so that you have something to compare other, inferior IDEs too )

i am using visual studio 6 i believe, though i have 2005 express for vb, and i will look into it, though this project will be done in vb, maybe future ones will be done in python

EDIT: i will not use it, i need somthing free

Did you not notice the part about using the FREE TRIAL? I said to use it as a benchmark to gauge other IDEs, and 30 days is more than enough to grasp that. Also, there are free licenses to open source projects

http://wingware.com/store/prices

look at the "Discounts" section near the bottom

I use a two-part system that seems to work well. For code-editing, I use Eclipse with the PyDev plugin (both are OSS). I do not wish to say too much about it now, since I just started using it recently. For GUIs, since I use wxPython, wxGlade is my only only semi-good option. I say semi-good because there are a certain number of cases that reliably crash wxGlade. I don't know about any other good programs, or even other GUI toolkits...

I personally like SPE with all of the tools it comes with. Kiki for regex help, XRCed for quick building of GUI things, as well as a lot of other things it has. But if it doesn't support the Python 2.5 stuff in the next month or so, I think I'll have to go to another IDE (probably Wing-IDE by the looks of it).

i will look, i did not see that, so i may use it, and i knew about the trial, i dislike having software for only a short period of time though

wxGlade is a GUI RAD to make developing wxPython programs better - I"m not sure how you are comparing wxGlade to wxPython, as wxPython is an API and wxGlade is a tool... o.0

@Kirb: wing-ide is amazing, but I believe that for right now its just an IDE, no GUI RAD

Well, the GUI RAD is separate anyway, SPE is just packaged with it. The same goes with Kiki. So after looking for a bit, it looks like Wing-IDE looks good. XRCed is missing some things such as MDI Frames, so wxGlade is looking to replace that (provided it can read my existing XRC files, DialogBlocks couldn't for some reason). I don't know how I overlooked it when searching for a GUI builder...

And for some reason, wxGlade chokes on my XRC files for PMPC, so it looks like I'm stuck with XRCed for a while...

wxPython vs. pyGTK or pyQT, not wxPython vs. wxGlade.

Well, after attempting to wrok with WingIDE for a while, I do have some things to say about it. Kllrnohj, you if there are ways to fix these things, I would be glad to try them, don't take this as a rejection of WingIDE altogether. First, I love the project thing. That's one thing I wish SPE had. Second, I like the Breakpoints. That helps with debugging a lot. Beyond that, I find SPE much easier to work with. It offers a TODO list that it builds from Python code ("#TODO:" comments), which helps to keep tabs on what needs to be done in a file yet. It also redirects output to a log with in itself so that the console doesn't pop up. I also like that SPE embeds an instance of the interpreter within itself where WingIDE seems to need it to be started. SPE also has a PyDoc previewer and UML viewer. I haven't dug around too deep with WingIDE, but those are just the things I see at first.

@Admins: Maybe this topic should be split?

I like Wing-IDE's indenting and variable auto-complete - the "smart" features of the IDE the most. Thats what really caught my eye Oh, and in the bottom, there should be a python interperator running in one of the tabs... although its been awile since I've used it. I'm not sure about the #TODO thing, but you might dig around in the manual or a getting started and see some of what WingIDE offers

Look at the middle bottom of this screenshot: http://wingware.com/images/screen1.jpg - see the python shell down there?

Oh, and did you try the free trial of the personal or professional edition? The only experience I had was with the pro version...

I tried the personal edition, so I'll see what the pro version has. SPE doesn't have variable completion, but it does have the argument helper and module/object completion (finish off method names and display arguments) features.

About the shell, I only saw a message that said the interpreted had to be started. I also can't seem to get rid of the GTK+ lag, which really annoys me.

i am making progress, but it is still months away from an alpha even, as i do not have much time to work on it, so it will not be finished fot quite a while, if anyone wants to help and knows vb i would appriciate it, as much of this is just tedious work entering similer things again and again, and most of the rest is simple

Just start uploading your source to an FTP directory and letting people review it and submit suggestions (or get a sf account and do it there, via SVN)

Definitely. That way other people can perhaps patch up the rough spots that you don't have time to smooth out.

i have a sf accound but not a project for this yet, though i may put the sourve vb project up on my homeserver, and i do not know how to do svn, and i sdo not think visual studio will let me, from within itself, and thanks for the suggestions, the source will be at http://glenn.game-host.org:8081/~VBT83/

that will have all the source files in a few minuts, and i will try to update it often, please send me and changes you would like, and highlight the changes with comments so i can notice them, please send changed zip's of all the files to glennmcgurrin@yahoo.com thanks