[TxMt] Some feature requests

[Kevin Ballard]

On Sep 25, 2005, at 2:59 AM, Frédérik Bilhaut wrote:

> - I use to write large documents in XML, and I use the soft  
> wrapping feature. But unfortunately the indentation is not properly  
> handled in this mode, since only the first "physical" line gets  
> indented. You probably now JEdit does that very well, I may send a  
> screenshot if you wish.

I have never used an editor that indented soft-wrapped lines. I would  
think that would be annoying because the editor would control the  
indentation, not you.

> - I need some way to close XML tags automatically with the easyiest  
> possible keystroke. For some reason, the shortcut for this feature  
> does not work on my system (Tiger on iBook G4 and latest version of  
> TextMate). Also, I think that the JEdit way to do this is very  
> good : you just have to type "</" and the rest of the closing tag  
> comes up automatically. For me this is far more natural than typing  
> an arbitrary keystroke.

It may be possible to write a macro or something to do a closing tag  
when typing </ without requiring any changes to the actual program,  
but if so I don't know how. Allan?

> For me the lack of these two features above is a real show stopper.  
> Also, I have some less important feature requests :
>
> - It seems that it is not possible to use tabs without creating a  
> project. It would be nice to have an option to say where newly open  
> files should be opened (in a tab or a new window).

TextMate 1.2 is going to focus on re-doing the entire project  
interface and, I believe, removing the distinction between individual  
files and projects, which would solve this issue.

> - I noticed that using the tabulation key when a block is selected  
> does not increment the block but simply deletes it. I assume that  
> there is another shortcut for this, but I think it would be much  
> more convenient to be able to use the tab key as for a single line,  
> as almost all good editors do.

Having the tab key indent the entire line would be contradictory to  
standard Mac conventions, and in this case I think it's far better to  
stick to standard Mac conventions. Try hitting opt-tab instead.

> - And of course, having the possibility to have a simple file  
> browser without creating a project would be great. By the way, it  
> also seems weird to me that the project explorer expands at the  
> right of the main window and not at the left, which is quite  
> unusual under MacOS and does not do well with window maximizing  
> functions.

I believe the project drawer is set to open on either side, and it  
picks the one with more room. If you want to "fix" this, close the  
drawer, drag the window to the right side of the screen, and re-open  
it. The drawer will pop open on the left side because there's no room  
on the right. And it will stay this way until you try to open a new  
project without enough space on the left for the drawer. This is  
fairly standard behavior for drawers that aren't fixed to one side or  
the other.

-- 
Kevin Ballard
kevin at sb.org
http://www.tildesoft.com
http://kevin.sb.org

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