Wish There are future plans for b4x to be one ide (b4a, b4j, b4i)

Lucas Siqueira

Active Member
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Longtime User
Since 2015 I have been developing in b4a, then I went to b4j and b4i, followed a part of the evolution of the 3 IDEs and I am very grateful for what Erel did for me, today I have an extra income that helped to buy my house here in Brazil, thank you very much!

I always recommend b4x to all my friends and even people who ask me about mobile development. Sometimes they asked me why they have 3 IDEs, why they didn't unify them. I always answer that I believe I have plans to unify, but I would like to know from AnyWhere, if there really are future plans for b4x to be a single ide, because the language is already the same using b4xpages.

One difficulty is having to copy the designer from one ide to the other and having to make adjustments, because sometimes a gradient does not copy, an edge is not rounded, etc ... (maybe creating a unique designer file for the 3 ides, .bxl)

But once I want to thank you for the b4x help me with my achievements every day: D
 

Erel

B4X founder
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Longtime User
You forgot B4R in the title.

The IDE is actually the same IDE with a few specific features for each platform.

One difficulty is having to copy the designer from one ide to the other and having to make adjustments, because sometimes a gradient does not copy, an edge is not rounded, etc ... (maybe creating a unique designer file for the 3 ides, .bxl)
This is a different feature.

1. The common features are copied when you copy and paste a layout: [B4X] Sharing layouts between platforms
2. Custom views properties are copied. If you use XUI Views for example then it is very simple to copy layouts.
3. B4X creates native applications. It is possible to create a single designer for B4A, B4i, B4J but you will lose features, such as native views that aren't available in other platforms. There are many differences between those three platforms.
I don't like limiting developers to the "lowest common denominator", though it is possible that at some point there will be a bxl layout file.
 
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moster67

Expert
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Longtime User
I also used to think that a single IDE would be the best.
I am using Intellij a lot too and I have realized that most of the time I would still have two instances of Intellij open, one for Python and another one for Java.
So if there would be a single IDE for B4X, I still think you would need multiple instances of the IDE open if you wanted to work across the different platforms at the same time.
Therefore, at least for me, this is not really a big deal.
 

Erel

B4X founder
Staff member
Licensed User
Longtime User
I also used to think that a single IDE would be the best.
I am using Intellij a lot too and I have realized that most of the time I would still have two instances of Intellij open, one for Python and another one for Java.
So if there would be a single IDE for B4X, I still think you would need multiple instances of the IDE open if you wanted to work across the different platforms at the same time.
Therefore, at least for me, this is not really a big deal.
True and it is important to add that the B4X IDE is quite lightweight (~5mb) so having it installed multiple times is not too bad.
 
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