[Geany-devel] narrowing feature in Geany?

[Liviu Andronic]

Dear devels
What would you think about implementing a 'narrowing' feature in Geany?

Currently, the functions that are longer than a screen are very hard
to track with simple scrolling. One thing that helps is matching
braces, but only to a degree. Even if you highlight the braces by
placing the cursor on one of the two, you may still need to start
searching for the end of the function, and you may still easily miss
it. (I think there is a binding that allows to go to the second brace
directly, but that's still not it.)

Another way to deal with this would be to add a 'narrowing' option.
I've first heard of this on the LyX list [1], with a reference to the
commercial EmEditor [2] (scroll to 'narrowing' to see some
screenshots). For example, Geany could narrow down---keep the needed
part in the usual background but grey-out all the rest---when placing
the mouse on braces. (Or, this could be provided as a c-menu item when
the cursor is on the bracing. Alternatively, the narrowing mode could
be activated after selecting several lines and clicking on a menu
item.) Whichever the implementation, this feature can be very helpful
to improve workflow and reduce the mental workload necessary to
inspect/edit specific parts of the code.

Do you think this would make sense for Geany? Regards
Liviu

[1] http://www.mail-archive.com/lyx-users@lists.lyx.org/msg80540.html
[2] http://www.emeditor.com/modules/feature1/rewrite/tc_35.html



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