Hi,
I'm curious if Geany has (or has plans to add) the following features:
* Can I insert text from file. I use this for various template snippets I have hanging around. I tried just dropping one of these snippet files into ~/.geany/templates, but it doesn't automatically show up in "Edit --> Insert Comments". I think it would be nice to just have a simple "Edit --> Insert Text From File" menu item.
* Can "Construct autocompletion" be customized?
* Does Geany have a justify paragraph (aka "fill paragraph") feature? It would be sometimes helpful to be able to justify to whatever the "long line marker" is set to.
Also, an idea: it might be more clear to rename "Line Wrapping" (both in the Document menu and Edit --> Prefs --> Editor tab) to "Display lines wrapped". Hmm... Is there a separate term for when the editor inserts newlines automatically for you as you type long lines? Maybe just distinguish between these two sorts of features in the popup help?
Thanks, ---John
On 02/16/2007 09:38:38 PM, John Gabriele wrote:
Hi,
I'm curious if Geany has (or has plans to add) the following features:
- Can I insert text from file. I use this for various template
snippets I have hanging around. I tried just dropping one of these snippet files into ~/.geany/templates, but it doesn't automatically show up in "Edit --> Insert Comments". I think it would be nice to just have a simple "Edit --> Insert Text From File" menu item.
Sounds like a nice feature. We plan to improve the template file system to be more flexible. The next thing to be done will probably be templates for all filetypes - at the moment this is limited to the 8 types in the drop down New menu.
- Can "Construct autocompletion" be customized?
This is on the TODO list.
- Does Geany have a justify paragraph (aka "fill paragraph") feature?
It would be sometimes helpful to be able to justify to whatever the "long line marker" is set to.
do you mean like this? Personally I'm not sure that fits in a text editor, at least for now.
Also, an idea: it might be more clear to rename "Line Wrapping" (both in the Document menu and Edit --> Prefs --> Editor tab) to "Display lines wrapped". Hmm... Is there a separate term for when the editor
I think line wrapping is the usual term.
inserts newlines automatically for you as you type long lines? Maybe just distinguish between these two sorts of features in the popup help?
NEdit has a wrap mode called 'Auto Newline'. Alternatively we could use 'Word Wrapping'. I think this would be a useful feature when writing XML-like content or plaintext. I looked at doing this a while ago but it's not directly supported by Scintilla. I'll put it on the TODO list.
Regards, Nick
On 2/17/07, Nick Treleaven nick.treleaven@btinternet.com wrote:
On 02/16/2007 09:38:38 PM, John Gabriele wrote:
Hi,
I'm curious if Geany has (or has plans to add) the following features:
[snip]
- Can "Construct autocompletion" be customized?
This is on the TODO list.
Whoops. Thanks.
- Does Geany have a justify paragraph (aka "fill paragraph") feature?
It would be sometimes helpful to be able to justify to whatever the "long line marker" is set to.
do you mean like this?
No, not putting in any extra spaces. Sorry -- "justify paragraph" is probably an ambiguous term. I meant, if you've got a paragraph of text, with lines of varying length (or maybe it's just one big long wrapped line), I'd like to be able to have the editor add in and/or move around newlines to make the lines all about n characters long. This comes up for me when writing docs in code. I keep going back to the docs to update them, but when I do, it goofs up line lengths, and I have to even the lines up again to make it look nice. It's a real pain that I think the editor should take care of for me. Emacs does it with M-q. NEdit does it with Ctrl-J. I use this feature a lot.
Personally I'm not sure that fits in a text editor, at least for now.
Agreed.
Also, an idea: it might be more clear to rename "Line Wrapping" (both in the Document menu and Edit --> Prefs --> Editor tab) to "Display lines wrapped". Hmm... Is there a separate term for when the editor
I think line wrapping is the usual term.
inserts newlines automatically for you as you type long lines? Maybe just distinguish between these two sorts of features in the popup help?
NEdit has a wrap mode called 'Auto Newline'. Alternatively we could use 'Word Wrapping'.
Ah yes, Auto Newline. I don't find this feature useful. It's very difficult to get it to behave right in all circumstances. I much prefer just typing away, and then manually doing the fill-paragraph/justify when I want to even up the current paragraph.
I suppose the original point I was trying to get at was that the popup help should probably explicitly say that Line Wrapping has to do with *display*, and not actually putting in newline characters for the user (like an Auto Newline feature would do).
I think this would be a useful feature when writing XML-like content or plaintext. I looked at doing this a while ago but it's not directly supported by Scintilla. I'll put it on the TODO list.
Uh oh. Please don't put in auto newline on account of me! I'd much prefer fill/justify paragraph. :)
Thanks, ---John
On 02/17/2007 06:34:54 PM, John Gabriele wrote:
On 2/17/07, Nick Treleaven nick.treleaven@btinternet.com wrote:
On 02/16/2007 09:38:38 PM, John Gabriele wrote:
- Does Geany have a justify paragraph (aka "fill paragraph")
feature?
It would be sometimes helpful to be able to justify to whatever the "long line marker" is set to.
do you mean like this?
No, not putting in any extra spaces. Sorry -- "justify paragraph" is probably an ambiguous term. I meant, if you've got a paragraph of text, with lines of varying length (or maybe it's just one big long wrapped line), I'd like to be able to have the editor add in and/or move around newlines to make the lines all about n characters long. This comes up for me when writing docs in code. I keep going back to the docs to update them, but when I do, it goofs up line lengths, and I have to even the lines up again to make it look nice. It's a real pain that I think the editor should take care of for me. Emacs does it with M-q. NEdit does it with Ctrl-J. I use this feature a lot.
OK, thanks for explaining.
[...]
Also, an idea: it might be more clear to rename "Line Wrapping"
(both
in the Document menu and Edit --> Prefs --> Editor tab) to "Display lines wrapped". Hmm... Is there a separate term for when the editor inserts newlines automatically for you as you type long lines?
Maybe
just distinguish between these two sorts of features in the popup help?
NEdit has a wrap mode called 'Auto Newline'. Alternatively we could use 'Word Wrapping'.
Ah yes, Auto Newline. I don't find this feature useful. It's very difficult to get it to behave right in all circumstances. I much prefer just typing away, and then manually doing the fill-paragraph/justify when I want to even up the current paragraph.
I think Auto Newline and manual line-breaking would share most of the same code. I think Auto Newline is an important feature.
I suppose the original point I was trying to get at was that the popup help should probably explicitly say that Line Wrapping has to do with *display*, and not actually putting in newline characters for the user (like an Auto Newline feature would do).
I agree that the term is not completely clear, but IME most editors use it consistently to mean wrap the text to the width of the window, without linebreaks. How about 'Line Breaking' to describe inserting newlines?
Regards, Nick
On 2/18/07, Nick Treleaven nick.treleaven@btinternet.com wrote:
On 02/17/2007 06:34:54 PM, John Gabriele wrote:
[snip]
I suppose the original point I was trying to get at was that the popup help should probably explicitly say that Line Wrapping has to do with *display*, and not actually putting in newline characters for the user (like an Auto Newline feature would do).
I agree that the term is not completely clear, but IME most editors use it consistently to mean wrap the text to the width of the window, without linebreaks. How about 'Line Breaking' to describe inserting newlines?
It's tough to find the right words. "Line breaking", "line wrapping", and "auto newline" all sound pretty similar to me. As long as the popup help is clear about the difference between the features (ex.: altering display vs. altering your text, or toggling a feature on/off vs. a one-shot altering of your text), I'm sure any names you choose would be fine.
I really like Geany's popup help, btw. :)
Thanks, ---John