[TxMt] Split the project drawer?

[David Rogers]

Mark,

Thanks for the advice. I rarely use the drawer buttons due to the 
Ctrl-Click functionality; everything is duplicated in the pop-up menu 
anyway. The problem I've been experiencing originated from trying to 
create a group from files and folders within a top-level folder 
reference, which probably conflicts with the 'Groups can't exist in 
Folder Reference' rule; Textmate doesn't make the logical jump to 
create a top-level group.

This does represent desirable behavior, however, as it would be 
conducive to one's workflow to have both folder refs _and_ groups, just 
not intermixed. I'm not sure how Allan has implemented the data 
structures for Groups and Folders in the Project Drawer, but they're 
probably the same base type and TM does a quick type/class check to 
ensure Groups don't get mixed in with Folders. While I can definitely 
see the use of both, I haven't quite gotten a grip on how Groups are 
created, I think.

I can't find anything in the GUI that allows me to create an empty 
Group, although the GUI supports creating an empty Folder. Of course, 
this has to do with the tie that Folders have to the filesystem, but 
the ability to create an empty top-level Group and populate it with 
file references would be nice. Then again, I haven't really found a way 
to duplicate file / folder references, either, once the groups have 
been established. That stuff might just still be on the drawing board.

David

On Sep 23, 2006, at 2:11 PM, Mark Smith wrote:

>
> Hi David,
>
> sorry for the delay in replying. You caught me in the middle of a 
> major email clear-up and now I've misplaced your messages and am 
> answering from memory.
>
> AFAIK, the order in which you do things does not matter. You can mix 
> and match folder references and file references and file groups as you 
> please.
>
> Stop me if I'm telling you things you know already...
>
> Perhaps you are getting confused by the "create folder" button at the 
> bottom of the document list drawer ? This button has two possible 
> behaviours. Its behaviour is sensitive of the current selection. If 
> you hover over the button, you will get a pop-up that explains the two 
> possible behaviours. This explanation attests to the only thing that 
> is (at least AFAIAA) forbidden in terms of mixing objects in the 
> drawer.
>
> That is : you *can't* create a group within a folder reference. 
> Anything else you might want to do, seems to me to be posible:
>
> You *can* create folders and files within a folder reference and these 
> will then be created in the FS. You *can* drag folder references 
> and/or file references inside of groups and you can create file 
> references inside of a group. When you do the latter TextMate will ask 
> you where the file should be created in the FS.
>
> Hope this helps,
>
> Mark.
>