[Geany-devel] saving plugin settings in a project file

[Lex Trotman]

On 19 September 2011 18:38, Alexander Petukhov <devel at apetukhov.ru> wrote:
> I would like to store debugger settings such as watches, breaks, target etc
> in a project file.
>
> These are not the settings that apply to a plugin in a whole but look like
> being related to files
> user is working with, i.e. a project.

The files a user is working with are not necessarily a project.
Especially for something as general as debugging it is important that
you also support workflows that don't involve having a project file
open (as well as ones that do of course).

>
> After looking at project signals I was 100% sure that they are intended to
> give a plugin a place to store
> its settings that apply to a project.
>

Not necessarily, there are also plugins that provide extended project
functionality but still use standard settings, so they need to know
about when those change.

> Yesterday on IRC we talked about it and Matthew said that it's better to
> have a distinct file.

As much as I hate to agree with Matthew :) he's probably right on this
one.  Having your own file allows you to support both operation with a
project and operation without one.  Just store your sets of settings
separated by project name and a set which are general for non-project
use.

> As for me, I'd better keep all session related settings in one file, i.e. in
> a project and would like
> to ask you here what do you think about?
>

Again, you should also support non-project operation.

> One more question is about project signals, looks like to save settings in a
> project a plugin is encouraged to
> add a notebook tab in "project_dialog_create" signal handler and to save
> setting when this dialog is closed when processing
> a "project_save" signal.

Well no, plugins normally create a tab in the plugin preferences dialog.

>
> The GKeyFile that is passed in "project_open" signal is closed right after
> sending a signal, so plugins can't use it for saving data.

Which sort of answers the question :)

>
> What if I want to write settings not using project settings dialog that
> looks unsuitable for a debugger,
> is it correct to initialize and the save a new GKeyFile to
> geany_data->app->project->file_name?

Personally I don't think that individual programmer information like
this should be in a project file, it should be in the user prefs.  I
believe it was a mistake to have session settings in a file called the
project file, a project file is something that I have seen shared, and
having individual user settings in it is a problem.  Perhaps one day
there will be time to separate sessions and project settings.


Cheers
Lex