On Sat, 24 Jan 2009 18:28:41 -0500 (EST), Greg Smith gsmith@gregsmith.com wrote:
I'm paranoid and I save files I'm working on a lot. Since I'm stuck with multiple platforms and programs I edit things with, I've settled on Alt-F to reach the file menu and S to save as having the broadest compatibility there.
This doesn't work well with Geany, because "Save" is grayed out if you haven't modified the file yet. So if you haven't made a change yet, that combination of keys leaves one stuck in the menu structure, likely to cause mayhem if you keep typing without noticing what happened. I find applications that change how the menus work in a modal way like this any more than absolutely necessary frustrating, and I'm not aware of any other GNOME applications that work this way.
Please note: Geany is NOT a Gnome application.
There's multiple use cases this doesn't support too. I might want to save a file just to update its timestamp, or just to confirm that I have appropriate permissions to change it before I actually begin editing it.
For those things I would do in a console: touch filename or ls -l filename
which is more informative and (for me) faster. But well, that's just me :).
Is there any way to change this behavior? What I normally expect from a programming oriented editor is a visual indication of changed/unchanged, but not for save to ever be disabled. I'm sure
Well, I never expected anyone wants a Save action available if there is no need to. To me, it would be just confusing if an editor would allow me to save a file which has no changes. The disabled Save actions and Save All actions are a neat way to indicate that there are no changes (this is especially true for Save All).
there are people that prefer the current behavior, so some sort of
Yes, me.
settings option ("Disable save if document unchaged") to toggle between the two would seem the ideal way to handle this.
Sigh. Yet another option. If we add something like this, I'd prefer it to be a hidden option as it will be probably unlikely that many people will use it.
Regards, Enrico