[Geany] The plugin - Re: Use snippets for HTML autocompletion?

[Eugene Arshinov]

On Thu, 11 Nov 2010 17:42:49 +0000%
Nick Treleaven <nick.treleaven at btinternet.com> wrote:

> On Mon, 8 Nov 2010 12:55:23 +0300
> Eugene Arshinov <earshinov at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> > On Fri, 22 Oct 2010 13:38:42 +0100%
> > Nick Treleaven <nick.treleaven at btinternet.com> wrote:
> > 
> > > On Fri, 22 Oct 2010 12:51:10 +0400
> > > Eugene Arshinov <earshinov at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > 
> > > > > > The suggestion is to make use of snippets: if "table" or
> > > > > > "<table>" snippet is specified in [HTML] section of
> > > > > > snippets.conf, the snippet is automatically inserted,
> > > > > > otherwise <table> tag is just closed, like other tags now.
> > > > > > This should also work for any other tag.
> > > > > > 
> > > > > > Though, you can just define a snippet (say, "table") and
> > > > > > use it when you want to insert a table.  I doubt it's worth
> > > > > > implementing the suggestion if everything it gives is the
> > > > > > ability to type "<table>" instead of typing "table" and
> > > > > > pressing complete-snippet keybinding.
> > > > > 
> > > > > Perhaps the behaviour could be moved to the 'HTML chars'
> > > > > plugin, which could be renamed HTML or Markup.
> > > > 
> > > > Geany will have to notify the plugin about every char added.
> > > > Won't it be too "heavy" to send a signal in this case?
> > > 
> > > Actually, this is already done for that plugin. See the
> > > editor-notify signal.
> > 
> > Hi.
> > 
> > Extracting this into a plugin was a good idea.  I decided to add a
> > new one instead of extending HTML Chars because their functions are
> > pretty different (though both related to XML and HTML).  If I
> > extended HTML Chars, I would need to add a checkbox to separately
> > turn the completion-based-on-snippets on/off.  In a separate plugin
> > user achieve the same result by enabling/disabling the whole
> > plugin, which is simpler and more obvious.
> > 
> > I called the new plugin "XML snippets".  It's not pretty obvious,
> > but I couldn't think of anything better and short enough.  If you
> > have an idea, feel free to rename it.
> 
> I'm not sure that it should be distributed with Geany, I think the
> 'table' snippet is enough to replace auto-table. The plugin could be
> added to geany-plugins though.

OK, I'll port it.

> 
> About the API changes:
> > +	&editor_get_snippets_for_file_type,
> > +	&editor_insert_snippet
> 
> I'm not sure these are necessary, particularly
> editor_get_snippets_for_file_type - I don't want to expose the
> snippet data structures unnecessarily. Perhaps
> editor_find_snippet(doc, snippet_name) instead?
> 

The reason why I decided to export a hash table is that it allows a
plugin to decide independently whether to account "default" snippets or
just use the ones specified directly for the filetype (I must note
that there is currently no separate function to get the default
snippets, and relying on the fact that one can get it by passing
"default" as filetype name is really bad).  If we provide a function
like editor_find_snippet, we need to fix the behaviour in it or add a
boolean argument.  Now I think, the latter is the best choice.  Your
opinion?

> (I haven't really looked at editor_insert_snippet yet.)
>

Basically there was some code common for snippet insertion and (recently
introduced) snippet keybindings.  As I needed similar functionality in
the plugin, I extracted it to a separate function and exported.
 
> I'm not sure about having snippet names enclosed in <> angle
> brackets in snippets.conf, maybe.
> 

I explained it a bit in the documentation (geany.txt): "It allows you to
define snippets, which need not to be automatically inserted, without
any name clashes".

> > +	&sci_is_string_style,
> > +	&sci_is_comment_style,
> > +	&sci_is_code_style
> 
> I think these would fit better in highlighting.c, but could then
> be part of the API. They're not really related to Scintilla messages,
> and it would group lexer information in the same file.
> 

OK, I will move them.

> > +	&utils_find_open_xml_tag
> 
> Ok.
> 
> Nick
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