How about an option in File/Preferences to enable advanced preferences ? 
More realistically, a mention of arduino/lib/formatter.conf would be helpful and would only involve adding some text.
UKHeliBob:
How about an option in File/Preferences to enable advanced preferences ?More realistically, a mention of arduino/lib/formatter.conf would be helpful and would only involve adding some text.
That's a good idea - something like the link to "preferences.txt" under >File >Preferences maybe.
I want to update that I returned today back to v1.0.3, and now I am relieved
card5:
I want to update that I returned today back to v1.0.3, and now I am relieved
Yep, that's progress!
It has been obvious ( to me ) , and I have said this many times in past, that the Arduino was build for beginners and whoever is in charge (?) has no intention to get IDE from kindergartner level to the first grade.
In another way - it is much easier to keep using this "for beginners " excuse instead of making the IDE more robust.
Nick , it is ludicrous to keep telling this forum to post (complains) on developers site.
Been there, done that with mixed results, but mostly negative.
It would be to Arduino benefits for developers to read this forum , but that seems to be foreign concept to developers. And Arduinos are not an exception, if that is a plus.
compared to the struggles one has to fight by #including libs for either hardware beyond blink sketches and chicken flap controls by incompatible API syntax and object instantiations, the beginner's confusions about IDE complexity are peanuts IMO and widely overestimated.
But keeping settings as they have been so far and instead pointing out to different new optional settings and preferences would be very much appreciated.
BTW, putting most of the adjustment options into a index or filecard menu instead of the mess in the unmanageable settings text file would also ease the configuration by far (maybe you wish to have a look at BricxCC configuration menu which is very easy for keeping track):
Vaclav:
Nick , it is ludicrous to keep telling this forum to post (complains) on developers site.
Been there, done that with mixed results, but mostly negative.
That's because of the way you did it. I've reported quite a few issues and had positive results with all but one. I explain the issue clearly, succinctly, and politely, take the time to make sure it's not already reported, and state the steps required to reproduce. It feels good to contribute to the Arduino project in a small way but it's a fine line between helping and hindering. The devs only have so many hours a day to work and some are volunteers. If they spend all their time dealing with angry invalid issue reports there's no time to make progress by writing code. It's easy to forget that there's a real person on the other end of the computer screen, treat them as such and you'd receive much better results.
Vaclav:
Nick , it is ludicrous to keep telling this forum to post (complains) on developers site.
In the actual world, rather than some ideal world, that is the method that seems to get the most results.
You can post here and complain if you like, but the devs won't read your complaints either.
UKHeliBob:
How about an option in File/Preferences to enable advanced preferences ?
That might become a very slippery slope. The preferences and configuration options in software like IAR Workbench or Eclipse have been mentioned by the Arduino Team as examples of making too much stuff configurable.
A few years ago I tried IAR (the 30 day trial, to see if it worked with particular hardware). There's a preferences dialog with a long scrolling list of modules and plugins. The list is very long, even with a minimal install. Depending on which module you select on the tabs appear in the rest of that window. Some modules have so many tabs that horizontal scrolling is needed. Of course, each tab causes that side of the prefs window to show a different group of things you can configure.
Perhaps Arduino's minimalistic design is too far in the other extreme, but I really do like the simplicity of all the GUI-configured prefs on a single GUI pane.
I'm with you, Paul. simpler is better. After all, Arduino is really for beginners to programming, not so much for seasoned programmers. For more control over things, both in the IDE and the programming itself, AVR Studio is available and free.
A dual-mode IDE is an option, with "Basic" and "Expert" modes, but that's a hell of a lot of work, equivalent to writing two separate IDEs, and one of them much more complex than the current one.
You'll never please everyone, no matter what.
OldSteve:
You'll never please everyone, no matter what.
And no matter what, you can never please Vaclav. 
[quote author=Paul Stoffregen date=1445453050 link=msg=2445215]
And no matter what, you can never please Vaclav. [/quote]
So it seems.
He said "what do you expect from volunteers and for free"
Surely that should just make us grateful? I am. Thank you to those who freely volunteer their time to improve the whole of Arduino.
Great news for all dislikers of matching bracket indicator animation! Federico Fissore came through big time and removed the animation. Now what was that you were saying Vaclav? If you're too impatient to wait for 1.6.6 to be released you can get a preview by trying out the hourly build.
You can also edit Arduino/lib/theme/syntax/default.xml line 21 to change the matched bracket indicator behavior.
pert:
Great news for all dislikers of matching bracket indicator animation! Federico Fissore came through big time and removed the animation. Now what was that you were saying Vaclav?You can also edit Arduino/lib/theme/syntax/default.xml line 21 to change the matched bracket indicator behavior.
That's gotta please a few people. I'm still not fussy one way or the other, so if that's what the majority of people want, all's good.
I haven't decided which way I prefer. I get the complaint of it being distracting but I also like that it makes it easier to find the indicator. The great thing is it turns out this actually is user configurable so we each can set it to our own preference. I knew about the theme file but thought it only controlled color and font style. Judging from this thread, the majority of users don't want the animation so it makes sense to disable it by default. It's great to see that the Arduino developers are receptive to input from the community on this sort of thing.
pert:
I haven't decided which way I prefer. I get the complaint of it being distracting but I also like that it makes it easier to find the indicator. The great thing is it turns out this actually is user configurable so we each can set it to our own preference. I knew about the theme file but thought it only controlled color and font style. Judging from this thread, the majority of users don't want the animation so it makes sense to disable it by default. It's great to see that the Arduino developers are receptive to input from the community on this sort of thing.
Sure is. And pretty fast service too.
Personally I find this behaviour irritating: You type a "{" and the IDE "helpfully" adds the closing "}". But if you don't notice it doing that (and I am used to typing my own) then you get an oversupply of the blasted things. eg.
void foo ()
{
if (bar) {
} // <--- the IDE "typed" this for me
} // <--- the IDE "typed" this for me
This seems to be another option you can't turn off. For people who are used to just typing their own code (or even copying from a book) these extra braces are an annoyance. Especially as they can be hidden. If you try typing the above example in, with the "if (bar)" at the bottom of the screen, the extra braces are "silently" inserted (you don't actually see them until you scroll, and then you might not realize they are ones that are auto-inserted, rather than existing ones you had in your code).
1000% agree. I am constantly fighting it ever since the new editor was added. I've done a lot of searching for a way to disable it without having to recompile the whole IDE but no luck. I had previously assumed that there was no chance of the developers making it optional but the response to your issue has given me hope. Maybe if you started a topic on the forum that is a poll of whether users like this feature or not it could provide support for a feature request to make it optional or remove it. I'm guessing it's not such an easy change as disabling the animation by default but it's worth a try.
I agree, Nick. That's my pet 'hate' with the IDE. And as you say, they always seem to appear just off screen, too, so it's easy to overlook them initially.
Especially annoying when adding lines to a one-line 'if' statement, typing in the opening bracket, then hitting [Enter].
I can live with it, but do get a bit p'd off when I have to continually delete the extra closing bracket. 
@pert, if someone does start a poll, I'll definitely vote.
OldSteve:
@pert, if you do start a poll, I'll definitely vote.
I'd be happy to do so. The only reason I suggested that Nick Gammon do it is that I think he has a lot more pull here(and on the Arduino GitHub repo) than I do so that might give the poll a greater sense of authority to help get more participation.
pert:
I'd be happy to do so. The only reason I suggested that Nick Gammon do it is that I think he has a lot more pull here(and on the Arduino GitHub repo) than I do so that might give the poll a greater sense of authority to help get more participation.
I misread your post before, and thought you said you were thinking of starting a poll. (Already edited, when I realised my mistake.)
And I agree, Nick pulls more weight around here than you or I.
I did mention this issue earlier in this thread, but a separate thread/poll is a very good idea. I don't think we're the only ones that feel this way. Most of us are used to typing our own closing bracket.
This 'feature' could get people into the bad habit of never typing a closing bracket, which is fine in the Arduino IDE, but not in others like AVR Studio and all other IDEs that I've used.