01-14-2005, 12:19 AM
Yeah, the font will be changeable, either by just changing the font or by changing the theme. Right now though, neither are implemented because such bells and whistles aren't really critical to its function at the moment. The Theme Manager I've conceptualized will allow you to set up a number of different appearance options. FIDO will come with a number of additional fonts which you can install to further customize the appearance.
Most everything is customizable, because if there's one thing I can't personally stand, it's not being able to set things up my way. Which brings up an interesting question...who's for or against function isolation? I personally think it's a bad idea and so have most of the people that I've talked to on the subject, but some people deem it important or at least optional. So it will likely be an option at some point, but for now it's not implemented. It would be good to know how many people want or do not want such a feature though so I know where to put it in the list of priorities.
Oh and another issue...isolation of the program itself. Whitetiger brought up this issue to me on MSN last night. I was originally making FIDO work with the registry, but he reminded me that not everyone has poweruser access. So instead, I'm going to switch to a local INI file. This will also allow people to bring the IDE by itself on portable media (like flash drives) and not have to worry about installing it. Which brings up another issue...Visual Studio runtime modules. These should already be installed on the vast majority of modern-day computers. But those which are not will need the VS98 runtime package, which will be made available. For those who do not have them and are unable to install them...well, I'm sorry but you're going to have to wait for the FB port of FIDO, which will come once the GUI compiler is finished.
And Blitz...break away.
This thing will need a hell of a lot of stability testing and tweaking, and with it being open source, it will be much easier for changes to be made to improve it. 
Most everything is customizable, because if there's one thing I can't personally stand, it's not being able to set things up my way. Which brings up an interesting question...who's for or against function isolation? I personally think it's a bad idea and so have most of the people that I've talked to on the subject, but some people deem it important or at least optional. So it will likely be an option at some point, but for now it's not implemented. It would be good to know how many people want or do not want such a feature though so I know where to put it in the list of priorities.
Oh and another issue...isolation of the program itself. Whitetiger brought up this issue to me on MSN last night. I was originally making FIDO work with the registry, but he reminded me that not everyone has poweruser access. So instead, I'm going to switch to a local INI file. This will also allow people to bring the IDE by itself on portable media (like flash drives) and not have to worry about installing it. Which brings up another issue...Visual Studio runtime modules. These should already be installed on the vast majority of modern-day computers. But those which are not will need the VS98 runtime package, which will be made available. For those who do not have them and are unable to install them...well, I'm sorry but you're going to have to wait for the FB port of FIDO, which will come once the GUI compiler is finished.
And Blitz...break away.
This thing will need a hell of a lot of stability testing and tweaking, and with it being open source, it will be much easier for changes to be made to improve it.
I'd knock on wood, but my desk is particle board.