[TxMt] Re: [feature request] back & forward buttons / history steps

[Bill Burcham]

Allan Odgaard <allan at ...> writes:

> 
> On 22/08/2005, at 18.39, Gerd Knops wrote:
> 
> >> PROBLEM:
> >> The feature of all mac apps that I use the most is search.  
> >> Specifically find selection & find again. I use that feature to  
> >> step through every instance of that selection throughout my code.  
> >> One feature that I would love to see is a back button for selections.
> > I am hoping that the upcoming API will allow me to write a plugin  
> > that does something like that.
> > [...]
> 
> Just to add my comments: personally I use a combination of scroll (w/ 
> o moving the caret -- which is ctrl-cmd-option arrow keys) and cmd-J  
> to return, bookmarks, or the undo/redo trick -- but Gerd's approach  
> does sound like a more elegant/universal solution, so I'd of course  
> be happy to listen to his API requests (when I find time to do the  
> initial plugin infrastructure -- which starts to look like an  
> intermediate 1.1.1 release, perhaps with 1.1.2 doing syntax HL for  
> printing, and then on to 1.2).
> 
> 

It's been five months and I just wanted to follow up and see where Allan stands
with this feature request.  I'm not so much looking for the API, rather a full
fledged forward/back button on the UI, but if Allan can provide a suitable API
and someone else can write a bundle or something that'd be peachy.  In summary
I'd value a forward/back button similar to the browser's, that would allow me to
return from "expeditions" in my large/complex list of files.  

As an aside, I find that the way I use TextMate (for RoR development) is that I
drag my project folder to the TextMate app icon.  I navigate solely via the
"drawer" and command-t "go to file".  I have no use for the tabs across the top
of the window because the number of open files quickly overflows the horizontal
space.  It is often the case though that I'm jumping from a controller, to a
model, to a stylesheet, to a layout, to a unit test, to a functional test -- and
I want to get back e.g. to the controller when I'm done!  With say five or six
directories expanded in the drawer, the controller file (at the top of the
drawer) isn't visible (cuz I'm at the bottom of the drawer in the functional
tests area) -- so I have to use the mouse to scroll the drawer and then select
the controller.  This would be a lot faster with a "back button".

Another aside -- LOVE TextMate :)