CodeWright 7 for .NET and CodeWright 7.5

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CodeWright 7 for .NET and CodeWright 7.5

By Mike Riley

Borland acquired CodeWright as part of their Starbaseacquisition (previously, Starbase acquired the tool from Premia), and while theadoption of the utility into the Borland family makes sense from alanguage-independent IDE standpoint, its future place in the Borland lineup ishazy because of Borland's emphasis on a standardized IDE approach introducedwith Borland's recently-released C#Builder product (check out Mike Riley's reviewof Borland C#Builder Enterprise - Ed.). As such, the standalonelayout doesn't quite conform to the familiar Borland IDE look and feel. This ismuch less important in the VS .NET-hosted version, where CodeWright'sunobtrusive menu and related toolbar are its most noticeable footprints (seeFigure 1).

Figure 1. The .NET version ofCodeWright lives within the Visual Studio .NET IDE and includes nearly all thefunctionality found in the standalone edition.

The current versions of both editions support the C#language out of the box, but not VB .NET. Consequently, VB .NET developers willnot be able to appreciate a sizeable chunk of CodeWright's timesaving features.Besides C#, some of the other languages that CodeWright supports includeAssembly, AppBasic, C, COBOL, C++, HTML, Java, Pascal, PERL, VRML, and XML.

For me, the most unique (and nifty) feature of CodeWrightis the built-in peer-to-peer CodeMeeting instant messaging client (see Figure2). Although other IM applications could be used for team messaging and filetransfer, CodeMeeting allows for real-time, integrated, synchronized filesharing. This is one of those features that seems like such an obvious inclusioninto a code management tool after the fact, as if it should have been a baserequirement in any coding environment. Nevertheless, the CodeWright teampromoted this cool utility first and it is definitely a killer addition forteam-based development environments.

Figure 2. The standalone version ofCodeWright features a number of useful tools, with CodeMeeting being one of mypersonal favorites.

Other features that are at parity with competing productsare:

Unfortunately, even at the 7.5 release level, there arestill problems with the product. CodeMeeting has a nasty habit of freezing theCodeWright environment when attempting to connect to a client while not on anetwork. There seems to be no timeout associated with the call so the only wayto cancel this frozen condition is the three-finger salute method. I discoveredthis while accidentally clicking the connect button while on a cross-countryflight, losing all my work and preference settings from that session. Also,while multiple SDI windows can be docked within the main CodeWright window,coaxing the framed windows into specific locations is hit or miss. Forinstance, it took me over 10 attempts to correctly dock the CodeFolio windowinto the upper-left quadrant of the main program window. Lastly, for thosedevelopers looking to extend the environment, a separate SDK package must beobtained via Borland's sales staff. Why Borland opted to decouple the SDK,especially since its target market is the serious developer, is perplexing tosay the least.

In summary, Borland's CodeWright is a tool worthconsideration by the Windows developer, but best serves the Visual Studio .NETpower user. It's too bad that the standalone and .NET editions are not includedin the same package, as they complement each other by serving the horizon ofWindows developer needs being addressed. However, with the exception of theexcellent CodeMeeting and CodeFolio features and the lower price compared tocompeting packages, the standalone CodeWright product still lags behindcompetitor Visual SlickEdit in several key areas such as language librarysupport and interface usability. Still, competition is a good thing, and I lookforward to future versions of these products as they can only serve to furtherimprove developer productivity.

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Borland Corporation

Web Site: http://www.codewright.com/

Price: US$299