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Kdevelop is great IDE, however it suffers from one serious problem: it's interface is cluttered and sometimes its disturbing. What about ”text only” mode that would hide everything, leaving only the text edit field itself, kinda like in LyX document processor fullscreen mode or focus writer class software (like author from calligra).

Yeah, that could work. As long as elements like output and variables while debugging are still visible or easily accessible. Or maybe something like a Emacs stile multibuffer layout. Hiding all other elements that you dont really use often. Combined with a good keyboard shortcuts layout that might work very nicely, especially on low-res displays or when a mouse is not available or convenient.

What about simply making it like firefox fullscreen where if your mouse goes to the top/side of the screen, the normal menu pops up?

Volta wrote:Yeah, that could work. As long as elements like output and variables while debugging are still visible or easily accessible. Or maybe something like a Emacs stile multibuffer layout. Hiding all other elements that you dont really use often. Combined with a good keyboard shortcuts layout that might work very nicely, especially on low-res displays or when a mouse is not available or convenient.

I suspect that you would exit out of text-only mode when you want to do any debugging (though you could even do your debugging in text-only mode and rely on the pop-ups when hovering over stuff or using shortcuts, or whatever to display the info you want). The whole point of this text-only mode is that the window is entirely occupied by the editor pane, in which you can focus on the specific task without being distracted by any other interface elements.
While in this text-only mode you would have to rely heavily on shortcuts for navigation or performing any actions that you might have used the mouse to do. So, if you want any of the other interface elements (like debugging tools, output windows, etc.) to be available then you have to exit text-only mode which would return the interface to the state that it was before going into text-only mode.

If you really restrict your suggested "text-only" mode that far, then it becomes very similar to a standalone kate session...

Yes but I would be able to go back to the standard view with one keypress. Also kate is not IDE and lacks those neat tooltips.