Hello,
I'm a Ruby on Rails programmer with a bit of C and C++ experience. I was using gedit 2.x & the gmate plugins happily for over a year, until Ubuntu 11 decided to go to GTK3, and bump gedit to 3.x. All my plugins are no longer compatible, so I decided that it was about time to find a new editor.
I've tried all the editors I can find, and I've decided that Geany wins. But I'm not completely satisfied with it, and there's plenty of things I'd like to work on. Here's my list:
1) I'd like to expand the behaviour of 'Auto-close quotes and brackets', and make it work like the 'Pair char autocomplete' gedit plugin - http://code.google.com/p/gedit-pair-char-autocomplete/:
The plugin is smart enough to automatically overwrite existing closing brackets when appropriate. Selecting a block of text and typing an opening parenthesis or quote character will enclose the selection in quotes or parenthesis.
2) I'd like to fix a weird bug with 'haml' templates - Any file that starts with an '=' character is treated as a giant comment. This destroys syntax highlighting for most of our haml files. I can't figure out why this is happening.
3) I really like the TreeBrowser plugin. In fact, I really wouldn't have considered Geany if it didn't exist. So I'd like to add file-system monitoring to auto-refresh directories, and cut/copy/paste of multiple files. I think a file browser is a pretty critical feature of any editor, so I was also wondering if this plugin deserves to be merged into core.
4) I would love to write some plugins in Ruby. The GeanyLua plugin could be a good base for this, but it would be great if the core had native bindings for Python and Ruby.
5) I'd love to see more 'Ruby on Rails'-related plugins, such as test suite integration (RSpec/Cucumber), built-in Rails API documentation (similar to railsapi.com), and caching/invoking rake & capistrano tasks. It would also be nice if the compile/build buttons could be automatically hidden while editing a scripting language.
6) It would be cool to have some simple integrations with git and github.
Well, those are some of the things I'd like to work on. Thanks to everyone who has worked on Geany so far! It's a great IDE, and I look forward to contributing.
Regards, Nathan B
On Sat, Nov 26, 2011 at 7:23 PM, Nathan Broadbent nathan.f77@gmail.com wrote:
Hello, I'm a Ruby on Rails programmer with a bit of C and C++ experience. I was using gedit 2.x & the gmate plugins happily for over a year, until Ubuntu 11 decided to go to GTK3, and bump gedit to 3.x. All my plugins are no longer compatible, so I decided that it was about time to find a new editor. I've tried all the editors I can find, and I've decided that Geany wins. But I'm not completely satisfied with it, and there's plenty of things I'd like to work on. Here's my list:
Hi Nathan,
Contributions welcome.
- I'd like to expand the behaviour of 'Auto-close quotes and brackets', and
make it work like the 'Pair char autocomplete' gedit plugin - http://code.google.com/p/gedit-pair-char-autocomplete/:
The plugin is smart enough to automatically overwrite existing closing brackets when appropriate. Selecting a block of text and typing an opening parenthesis or quote character will enclose the selection in quotes or parenthesis.
Certainly you could use a plugin to provide an improvement in auto-closing braces etc. In general these days it is preferable that all language specific parts go in plugins so they don't interfere with other languages. Since braces are shared by all the C refugee languages :) a plugin for that would probably get much use.
As a personal note I find autoclosing a PITA and don't use it, YMMV.
- I'd like to fix a weird bug with 'haml' templates - Any file that starts
with an '=' character is treated as a giant comment. This destroys syntax highlighting for most of our haml files. I can't figure out why this is happening.
What filetype are you using for haml since it isn't a supported filetype? It is possible that whichever highlighting analyser you use doesn't fully understand haml (or it just has a bug :). The lexers are part of the editing component Geany uses from the scintilla project (see http://www.scintilla.org/ ) so if you find a bug you should report it there.
- I really like the TreeBrowser plugin. In fact, I really wouldn't have
considered Geany if it didn't exist. So I'd like to add file-system monitoring to auto-refresh directories, and cut/copy/paste of multiple files. I think a file browser is a pretty critical feature of any editor, so I was also wondering if this plugin deserves to be merged into core.
Well, lots of us don't think it is needed in an IDE at all, most desktops have a browser already, and it runs in another window on another screen making much better use of my screen real estate. And selecting files there opens them in Geany fine.
By all means implement improvements for the treebrowser plugin, but it is unlikely to be added to core (especially as even the more limited filebrowser included with Geany is a plugin, not core).
- I would love to write some plugins in Ruby. The GeanyLua plugin could be
a good base for this, but it would be great if the core had native bindings for Python and Ruby.
A Python plugin plugin is in progress. See https://github.com/codebrainz/geanypy
- I'd love to see more 'Ruby on Rails'-related plugins, such as test suite
integration (RSpec/Cucumber), built-in Rails API documentation (similar to railsapi.com), and caching/invoking rake & capistrano tasks. It would also be nice if the compile/build buttons could be automatically hidden while editing a scripting language.
Feel free to provide :)
- It would be cool to have some simple integrations with git and github.
There is a VCS plugin that supports git. What do you mean by github integration?
Well, those are some of the things I'd like to work on. Thanks to everyone who has worked on Geany so far! It's a great IDE, and I look forward to contributing.
Cheers Lex
Regards, Nathan B
Geany-devel mailing list Geany-devel@uvena.de https://lists.uvena.de/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geany-devel
Hi Lex,
Thanks for your reply.
Certainly you could use a plugin to provide an improvement in auto-closing braces etc. In general these days it is preferable that all language specific parts go in plugins so they don't interfere with other languages. Since braces are shared by all the C refugee languages :) a plugin for that would probably get much use.
As a personal note I find autoclosing a PITA and don't use it, YMMV.
I'll certainly write language specific parts in a plugin. Although, I think the features I mentioned are pretty generic, especially enclosing selected text in quotes or parentheses.
What filetype are you using for haml since it isn't a supported filetype? It is possible that whichever highlighting analyser you use doesn't fully understand haml (or it just has a bug :). The lexers are part of the editing component Geany uses from the scintilla project (see http://www.scintilla.org/ ) so if you find a bug you should report it there.
I've tried ruby and yaml filetypes, but it seems like a 'default' issue, even when `*.haml;` isn't defined anywhere. Thanks for pointing out that Geany uses scintilla. I found a relatively promising thread on their google group (http://groups.google.com/group/scintilla-interest/browse_thread/thread/4220b...), but it seems to have gone nowhere. I guess I have to get my hands dirty with lexers :)
Well, lots of us don't think it is needed in an IDE at all, most desktops have a browser already, and it runs in another window on another screen making much better use of my screen real estate. And selecting files there opens them in Geany fine.
By all means implement improvements for the treebrowser plugin, but it is unlikely to be added to core (especially as even the more limited filebrowser included with Geany is a plugin, not core).
Ok, that's fair enough. I agree that the 'minimal' mentality is a great thing to preserve, so I will just implement those improvements on the plugin. By the way, I'm really glad that the 'geany-plugins' umbrella project exists. It's a really good idea, and I'll be keeping it in mind for some of my other open source projects.
A Python plugin plugin is in progress. See https://github.com/codebrainz/geanypy
Awesome! If I write geanyrb, I will base it on this. Do you think it might make sense to have an abstract script plugin, with a common API? The Lua, Python and Ruby plugins could then share the same API.
There is a VCS plugin that supports git. What do you mean by github integration?
Thanks for that, I didn't notice the GeanyVC plugin. Works great, and I have a few ideas for improvements. A Github integration would be pretty ambitious, but I guess I'm just a Linux user who's a bit jealous of "Github for Mac" (http://mac.github.com/)... It would be cool to have some of those basic repo management features in my IDE.
Thanks again for your reply!
Cheers, Nathan
On Sat, Nov 26, 2011 at 9:23 AM, Nathan Broadbent nathan.f77@gmail.com wrote:
- I'd like to expand the behaviour of 'Auto-close quotes and brackets', and
make it work like the 'Pair char autocomplete' gedit plugin - http://code.google.com/p/gedit-pair-char-autocomplete/:
The plugin is smart enough to automatically overwrite existing closing brackets when appropriate. Selecting a block of text and typing an opening parenthesis or quote character will enclose the selection in quotes or parenthesis.
If I understand you correctly, you're referring to this bug report [1]. It was recently discussed on the list [2], and there is even some code implementing the feature as a plugin [3].
Regards Liviu
[1] https://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=detail&aid=3383201&group_id=15... [2] http://www.mail-archive.com/geany-devel@uvena.de/msg05210.html [3] https://github.com/pzoxiuv/Geany-Plugins
If I understand you correctly, you're referring to this bug report [1]. It was recently discussed on the list [2], and there is even some code implementing the feature as a plugin [3].
[1] https://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=detail&aid=3383201&group_id=15... [2] http://www.mail-archive.com/geany-devel@uvena.de/msg05210.html [3] https://github.com/pzoxiuv/Geany-Plugins
Oh, great! Amazing that this has been worked on so recently. It's almost what I want... But I think it should be the default behavior for 'auto-close quotes and brackets', instead of a plugin. I don't think any extra configuration options are necessary - nobody would complain about it if they've already turned on the 'auto-close' feature. I also think that the actual characters are much more appropriate triggers than 'Ctrl+<key>'.
Thanks for your help! Nathan
On Sat, Nov 26, 2011 at 6:41 PM, Nathan Broadbent nathan.f77@gmail.com wrote:
If I understand you correctly, you're referring to this bug report [1]. It was recently discussed on the list [2], and there is even some code implementing the feature as a plugin [3].
[1] https://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=detail&aid=3383201&group_id=15... [2] http://www.mail-archive.com/geany-devel@uvena.de/msg05210.html [3] https://github.com/pzoxiuv/Geany-Plugins
Oh, great! Amazing that this has been worked on so recently. It's almost what I want... But I think it should be the default behavior for 'auto-close quotes and brackets', instead of a plugin. I don't think any extra configuration options are necessary - nobody would complain about it if they've already turned on the 'auto-close' feature. I also think that the actual characters are much more appropriate triggers than 'Ctrl+<key>'.
I fully agree with these points: the feature should be included in core Geany, or best in its 'addons' plugin. And actual characters are preferable to 'ctrl' combos. But I'm not sure that the Geany devels would approve of this.
Regards Liviu
Thanks for your help! Nathan
On Sat, 26 Nov 2011 19:31:07 +0100 Liviu Andronic landronimirc@gmail.com wrote:
I also think that the actual characters are much more appropriate triggers than 'Ctrl+<key>'.
You can do that from a plugin, see extrasel key-press-event. Remember to check scintilla_get_current() against the widget.
I fully agree with these points: the feature should be included in core Geany,
Hmmm...
or best in its 'addons' plugin.
Being the author of extrasel, I'd still prefer plugins that connect to key press to stay outside addons.