Enhancing the kdevelop editor (was: Re: Intellisense (tm))

[holle at almaden.ibm.com]

While reading Massimos comments I got the impression that he is right.
What about doing it like we can see it in some webbrowsers URL field under the
evil-os:
You start typing and while you do so there will be a selected piece of text
completing the part of the word you typed. If that is not what you want, then
you just continue typing until the completetion is correct/you finished the
word. This would not take the focus away from the editor window. Furthermore it
is not too distracting.
I think we could even combine this with a little non-framed popup window under
the word you are typing which does *not* get the focus but rather shows what
options the editor sees for completing this word. Then you can just go on typing
or press for example cursor down or cursor up, to select on completetion. Then
once you are happy with the completition you can just <Ctrl-CursorRight> or
<End> to skip the rest. We could even make the popup window go away once you
pressed <Esc> and appear again if you for example press <Ctrl-Space> -- maybe
that even works for the completition -- you press <Esc> and the editor does not
try to completet things anymore unless you press <Ctrl-Space> or go to the
appropriate config menu entry.

But I think that this style is just **one** way to do it and we should have
different way, so programmers can choose what they like most. For me that would
proably be the <Ctrl-/> emacs style :-))

-holger


Massimo Morin <mmorin at schedsys.com> on 22/06/99 06:36:03

Please respond to kdevelop at fara3.cs.uni-potsdam.de

To:   kdevelop at fara3.cs.uni-potsdam.de
cc:    (bcc: Holger Lehmann/Almaden/Contr/IBM)
Subject:  Re: Enhancing the kdevelop editor (was: Re: Intellisense (tm))





Hi,
     about the intellisense, I think it is good, but if I have to use the
mouse for selecting the method I want to use (from the popup window) to
me is a waste of time: I can more easly write enterelly the method name
in the time I move the hand from the keyboard to the mouse and then
selecting the method.
Even worse is if the popup window is going to grab the focus: you'll
never have reed of it until you re-click on the editor!

Well, I don't know how it works on Windoze (I saw a popup window on
Visual Studio and.. this is the first think I disable!), but if I may
suggest:
why not a small yellow window like the baloon and a completion via tabs?
It should work as the bash/tcsh tab key, where it completes the name
after you press tab (and beeps if no competion availabel ;) ), without
forcing you to do anything....
in that way if someone wants to write completelly the name of the
function/method/member is not forced to be interruped by this intrusive
list...

My 0.02$
               Massimo


holle at almaden.ibm.com wrote:
>
> Hey coders :-))))
>
> did you read what Kevin wrote ?
> This seems to me as if we will need it. It is a very nice feature, which I
would
----snip----
> > >(global-set-key [ctrl-space] 'dabbrev-expand) ; for the .emacs file
> > Sure I know. My point was that THAT functionality is NOT the same thing as
> > Intellisence.

--
Massimo Morin        | Scheduling Systems Inc.
Software Engineer    |
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