[TxMt] UI - redistributing the density

[Brad Miller]

The Brads are in full agreement on this one.   +1   I suggested  
something along these lines less eloquently a while ago.

Here's another way of  thinking about it if you don't see what Brad  
is talking about:

One of the nice things about emacs is that even though there are  
thousands of commands (very much like TM) you don't have to remember  
the short cuts for most of them because you can type alt-x and start  
typing some fragment of the command. (usually the commands start out  
with the mode name) using emacs auto-completion of command names you  
can quickly get to what you want.

An intelligent command search box that works just like  cmd-t / cmd- 
shift-t  seems to be a very logical improvement over the old emacs  
command completion.

If not built-in I wonder if this could be done as a plugin???


Brad

I think of this feature as the next step beyond what emacs provides.
On Feb 9, 2006, at 1:22 AM, Brad Choate wrote:

> I totally agree that there is much to TextMate that doesn't meet  
> the eye. Or things that are just difficult to remember. Such as  
> keystrokes for various commands. My biggest frustration with TM is  
> keeping track of all the modifier keys. One way to reduce the  
> complexity of FINDING what you want is to have a search function.  
> Something spotlight-ish.
>
> We already have Cmd+T and Cmd+Shift+T for search-as-you-type for  
> files in a project and symbols in a file.  I'd love a key that  
> would present a search window for searching through bundle command/ 
> snippets/macros.  It would search as you type and would display any  
> available shortcut key on the right to help jog your memory.
>
> The list could even be ranked in order of applicability by  
> examining file type and scope with extra weighting based on usage.   
> THAT would rock.
>
> Also, for commands, I could even see typing a space after the  
> search abbreviation-- then, any arguments entered after the space  
> could be fed to the command as actual command line arguments. For  
> example, typing "svnc" or maybe "ci" would find the subversion  
> commit command. Then follow that with a space and the rest of the  
> line might be the comment to log for the commit.
>
> I think most of us aren't afraid using a keyboard at a command  
> line... so why not leverage that? Sometimes it's just easier than  
> navigating pages of menus and complex toolbars.
>
>
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