http://pnotepad.org/forums/topic/595 Programmer's Notepad Forums en-US Thu, 09 Feb 2012 06:36:30 +0000 http://bbpress.org/?v=1.0.3 q http://pnotepad.org/forums/search.php http://pnotepad.org/forums/topic/595#post-2177 Sun, 21 Jun 2009 13:38:20 +0000 zinahe 2177@http://pnotepad.org/forums/ <p>Hi Simon,</p> <p>Thank you for such as wonderful tool ! </p> <p>I wanted to contribute a few ideas on the Vim style keyboard shortcuts.</p> <p>1. May be we can implement &quot;Input Modes&quot; for PN. Input Modes could be &quot;Free Editing&quot;, &quot;Vim Shortcuts&quot; etc Keyboard shortcuts can now be specific to &quot;Input Modes&quot; rather than being Global; so that we avoid potentially conflicting short-cuts by limiting them to be effective at certain times;</p> <p>2. PN to come with the &quot;Free Editing&quot; mode selected by default, so that we avoid confusing those that are not familiar with Vi-style editing.</p> <p>3. To try to build the full Vi-feature set would be a bit over-ambitious, but if we can somehow build a framework where others can extend; now that would be ideal. May be we can even follow the &lt;Command&gt;&lt;Object&gt;&lt;Multiplier&gt; paradigm that the Vim/Vi editors use (i.e. dw2 -&gt; &lt;d:delete&gt;&lt;w:word the left&gt;&lt;2:two&gt; -&gt; delete two words to the left) </p> http://pnotepad.org/forums/topic/595#post-2146 Thu, 04 Jun 2009 12:41:23 +0000 simon 2146@http://pnotepad.org/forums/ <p>That's why keyboard shortcuts are customisable :) </p> http://pnotepad.org/forums/topic/595#post-2140 Wed, 03 Jun 2009 13:26:54 +0000 maXmo 2140@http://pnotepad.org/forums/ <p>One thing to keep in mind with shortcuts is they should not clash with other software, for example, a dictionary software can respond to ctrl+c+c and show translation of selected word and pn should not prevent it from doing this. </p> http://pnotepad.org/forums/topic/595#post-2122 Fri, 29 May 2009 09:05:47 +0000 simon 2122@http://pnotepad.org/forums/ <p>I should have said: Any volunteers to work on any of this?! :) </p> http://pnotepad.org/forums/topic/595#post-2121 Fri, 29 May 2009 09:05:30 +0000 simon 2121@http://pnotepad.org/forums/ <p>Firstly Nick is quite right in that PyPN provides a &quot;macro language&quot; of sorts - it's easy to define functions and then bind them to key combinations in the options dialog.</p> <p>Secondly I really want to come up with a nice way of having optional vi-style command modes. They offer a lot of power for those that invest the time in learning to use them well, and should actually be fairly simple to implement in a GUI framework. If the cursor is focused in the mode command box then all key presses are mode related, if in the editor then you're in &quot;insert&quot; mode. All that remains is a key press to jump to the mode box.</p> <p>I'm looking for ideas/inspiration as to the way people would like this to work before going ahead. I'm tempted to start by trying to mirror the VIM commands, perhaps in some form of python-driven way so that it's easy for the user to modify and experiment with the behaviour.</p> <p>Finally, I also want to allow PN to respond to multi-chord keyboard commands (e.g. Ctrl-A, A) as we're rapidly running out of shortcut space for those that bind lots of commands. </p> http://pnotepad.org/forums/topic/595#post-2119 Fri, 29 May 2009 04:58:40 +0000 NickDMax 2119@http://pnotepad.org/forums/ <p>With PyPN it is very easy to make small macros to do these movements and then assign them to keyboard shortcuts. Most of these already have keyboard shortcuts anyway.</p> <p>Truth is though this is really not as convenient as you may think -- the concept is good but in execution you run into problems. Basically to really make good you need to have Modes like vim but this tends to drive users away rather than attract them. </p> http://pnotepad.org/forums/topic/595#post-2118 Fri, 29 May 2009 01:50:22 +0000 Howard 2118@http://pnotepad.org/forums/ <p>Maximum kudos on your editor!! Really love it's load speed and the way it helps edit various languages. (Having written an editor myself many years ago, I know how much hard work it is but also how gratifying it was to create.)</p> <p>===&gt;&gt;&gt;What I hope to see added to your editor is a relatively simple feature to increase editing speed, i.e. the actual rate that a programmer can get his or her work done. </p> <p>So here's a new, but also very old idea: Minimize the mousing. Eliminate it.</p> <p>We all love our fancy mouses but truth is they slow us down. Keeping the hands on the keyboard is the fastest way to edit code and text. Ok for those of you who have never edited without a mouse consider this: sometimes I just want to move up a line or right a word, etc. One keystroke in an old key stoke based editor would do that, and so much quicker than fidgeting with a mouse. </p> <p>What has to work about this is a good method of learning and remembering keystroke combination.</p> <p>The old editors had commands to </p> <p>move up, down, right, left;<br /> page up, down;<br /> delete word left, right;<br /> Paragraph up, down;<br /> beginning of line, end of line;<br /> begin of file, end of file; etc, </p> <p>all keeping hands on the keyboard, and all with only the control key. </p> <p>They centered on the control diamond of ESDX on the keyboard (look at your keyboard). Then A and F for exaggerated left and right. No reason to reinvent the wheel: if you're interested I'm sure I can dig up their keyboard layout. It really worked well. </p> <p>Also they used control-key and control-key-key sequences which is faster and easier than using shift and alt sequences. I mean my hands have never really worked very well with the WordPerfect model of alt-shift this and control-atl that. I just can't make them work. But ^QE for &quot;quick&quot;-Up (E is at the top of the control diomond) always made sense to me. or ^K for blocK.</p> <p>2) To implement this you need to be able to have a simple way of installing a list of custom key to function bindings. Best is to do it the way Vedit did it and make a simple macro language for keystrokes. </p> <p>I would love to talk with you more about this if you are interested. </p> <p>-- Howard </p>