[Geany-devel] editor context menu - Re: Search submenu for editor popup menu

[Lex Trotman]

On 16 September 2010 21:57, Nick Treleaven
<nick.treleaven at btinternet.com> wrote:
> On Thu, 16 Sep 2010 09:54:09 +1000
> Lex Trotman <elextr at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> >> 2. let the user pick say four most used top level commands since we
>> >> are *never* going to agree on them.  Use a simplified version of the
>> >> customise toolbar dialog.
>> >
>> > Personally I don't think it's worth doing this. Put the most useful
>> > things at toplevel, everything else in submenus.
>>
>> Ah but whats the most useful?
>
> Things which are useful for the largest number of users.

A pessimistic interpretation of this is: If its not C we're not interested :-)

There is also
> an issue of letting new users discover some useful things easily that
> they might not know Geany does.

Discovery should be in the main menus that are always visible, not in
popups which are hidden.

>
>>  I *never* use insert comments from the popup and rarely from the menu
>> (changelog mostly) so for me having any insert comments in the popup
>> is a waste of space.
>
> Which is why a single Insert submenu would be better.

Yes, erm I thought thats what I proposed and below you were proposing
to also have insert(s) in the top level, my misunderstanding.

>
>> I'm not suggesting its required, but if someone out there has the time
>> to implement it this would remove all the disagreements :-)
>
> Is it so bad to solve the disagreements using submenus?

It doesn't solve which commands go in the top level of the popup for
greatest convenience, which was the only bit I was suggesting as
configurable.

>
> This avoids maintenance and code complexity of popup configurability,
> which I predict isn't going to be pretty. C is not a good GUI language.

Too true, so make it manually edited configuration for now.

>
>> >> 3. pack the rest in submenus.
>> >
>> >> format > format submenu as now
>> >
>> > What about Commands - at least half of these are context related.
>> >
>> >> insert > insert submenu including the insert comments
>> >
>> > I think at least me and Enrico use insert comments a lot, we'd like it
>> > to be toplevel. The other insert items could maybe be in a submenu
>> > (also insert alt whitespace). This would be like having Go to Tag
>> > Definition in toplevel but Go to Tag Declaration in a submenu as it's
>> > less common.
>>
>> And I of course use the tool differently so I don't want any inserts
>
> Did you see my Insert submenu reply?

As I said above, I read this as implying you also wanted insert
item(s) in the toplevel, not just in the submenu.

>
>> and use go to declaration much more than go to definition due to the
>> language I use most :-).
>
> Correct me if wrong, but Go to declaration is only needed for function
> prototypes and extern declarations, no?

For C, for C++ the function declaration is part of the class
declaration and is separate from the definition.  The class
declaration has more information and is used much more often than the
prototype/extern declaration is in C.

 The feature is only useful for
> C/C++, not for most users. So having to find it in the proposed popup
> Search submenu is acceptable, no?

Well, if goto definition is in the top level then I'd say no :-) it
needs to be the other way round for C++ users.  And I would have
thought that there were other languages that made the distinction
between declarations and definitions, not just C/C++.

>
>> For all user names : [insert name here] uses it differently again so
>> almost no one is fully happy with a fixed menu.
>
> As mentioned above, I'm not trying to force my preferences on anyone.
> I'm trying to find a good default that is reasonable (but not ideal)
> for everyone.

And I'm trying to suggest that it would be better for users to be able
to pick their own ideal.

It may be that no one who is interested has enough time to implement
it, even without a GUI, but if we don't ask we won't get :-).

Once at least some configuration is available then things like Jiri's
suggestion become possible as further extensions.

Cheers
Lex

>
> Regards,
> Nick
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