[TxMt] i-search in TextMate

[Sune Foldager]

On 29. nov 2004, at 5:14, Wileks Joiner wrote:

> On Nov 28, 2004, at 7:05 PM, Wayne Larsen wrote:
>> 1. It's faster.  Yes, maybe you only have the find dialog box open 
>> for less than a second, but: "Ctrl-S + Partial search string" is 
>> always going to be faster than "Apple-F + Full Search String + 
>> Enter".  Also launching the dialog box occasionally takes a non 
>> trivial amount of time, particularly if the app has been swapped out. 
>>  Factor in people who type slower, or those people who search out 
>> that last little bit of efficiency and it makes a difference.
>
> Yes, it is much faster.

How about some more concrete reasons? I count (apart from partial vs. 
full) three things in the first part: Apple-F, enter string, Enter. In 
the second there is two, but surely you need to press some key to go 
back to normal editing, be it arrow escape of enter. So that makes.. 
three also. Contrast that to "much faster". I mean.. I like incremental 
search too, and sometimes it is a bit faster and more convenient since 
it highlights all matches but still ;-).

>> 2. Launching a dialog box is unnecessary for this task -- sometimes 
>> the dialog box obscures text that I am using for reference.
> The above is why it is much faster.  I cringe when forced to use a 
> dialog box for all searching.  Being an emacs user and a firefox user, 
> these are key productivity boost when navigating some form of a text 
> document.

Aha, but for i-search where would you enter your search string? You 
still have to enter it somewhere, so if it launches a dialog or moves 
input to a pop-up string gadget or whatever, where is the enormous 
speed difference?

>> [...] this style of search is now becoming default in apps [...]  the 
>> isearch plugin for NSTextView, Firefox, iTunes, etc.

Hmm... because of a 3rd party plugin? Hardly the same as being default 
in the app ;-).

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