Juan <juanfc@...> writes:
Nop. It should be great to have an API to access TM interface from the scripts, shouldn't be?
;)
Hi there,
I really don't mean to sound like a jerk. But your continuing to say this (I think this is the 5th email about it, in addition to at least one ticket) is just getting annoying. A couple of comments:
1. Allan already knows that there are things which require hooks into other parts of the application, and cannot therefore be done currently without a plugin.
2. If we examine this state of affairs logically, and try to figure out *why* it might be the case, we find the following possibilities.
* It's possible there are other areas of the application he feels are more essential. In this case, continually repeating "API, API, API" just distracts him from these other features, preventing him from ever getting to work on the API you want.
* It's possible that Allan doesn't like giving bundle items such general power. Maybe he feels that we'd end up with a system of commands that looks like emacs, which is arcane and vastly more complicated than TextMate's (more effective, and more *usefully* flexible) extension mechanisms. In this case whining just makes Allan annoyed, without increasing your chances.
* It's possible that Allan hasn't decided how he wants to present such increased functionality to users. For instance, allowing conditinals and loops inside macros is the only thing technically needed to have the power you are requesting. But such additions aren't easy to create. And often the behaviors of such complex macros would be better handled by a command anyway. In this case, given that you haven't given any concrete suggestions, you're just distracting from these deliberations.
3. Now let's consider from the point of view of other readers on this mailing list. Such a reader has nothing to gain from the continual pleas for an API. Those pleas are just earning you ill will, and taking time to skim over by list readers. They don't have any concrete suggestions, or any actual thwarted use cases. They aren't solving anyone's problems, or making anyone think.
4. To add insult to injury, in this particular case, your answer was in fact wrong. The OP's question was perfectly answered by Haris, who noted that the only required action was ticking a single checkbox. So this specific example, if anything, proves that an API is not needed, because existing structures suffice.
Conclusion: find something more productive to do, like making some useful language grammars or commands, or else go back to Alpha or emacs or whatever, where you can get all the API you can eat. When you have read the manual, and spent a few weeks or months working with TextMate, and you find something you can't accomplish, send a note to this list, and we will try to help you. If your problem still cannot be solved, and its solution will vastly improve the productivity of a large number of people, then you will have a more compelling case to make for the addition of an API.
-Jacob