Tuesday, September 26, 2006
3 Editing Tricks
Today I have 3 tricks to improve editing with IL (InnerLoop).
Column Selection
I normally use vi and never learned any way to select columns of text and cut, copy, or insert them. Eventually I learned how to do it with emacs using rectangle command like Ctrl-x r k to kill a rectangle, etc. With InnerLoop it took me some time to figure out how to it. I first tried to switch to emacs key bindings and go back to the keystrokes I knew, but they didn't work. I then found out the secret is to select the text with the right mouse button instead of the left. Using the right mouse button selects a rectangle and you can easily cut or copy it using the buttons at the top. I never would have guessed it.
Tab to Align Code
IL has the ability to correctly indent your code by using the Tab key. I think it's called "smart tab". Say you restructure some code and some lines are now indented too much. Instead of using delete to pull them back to the left you can hit tab and IL will do this for you and set the indenting to the correct amount. I guess the tab is not really a tab in this case since text may move left or right.
Edit Toolbar
One of the toolbars that is not automatically displayed is called "edit". There are two pairs of buttons on this toolbar that are useful to adjust the indent of the code. They are the ones with the orange boxes and blue arrows. If a block of text is selected they will move the code either right or left 1 level of indentation or just 1 space at a time (for fine tuning). There are many times when blocks of code must slide right or left and this is a great way to do it. Turn on this toolbar using View -> Toolbars -> Edit and give it a try.
Today I have 3 tricks to improve editing with IL (InnerLoop).
Column Selection
I normally use vi and never learned any way to select columns of text and cut, copy, or insert them. Eventually I learned how to do it with emacs using rectangle command like Ctrl-x r k to kill a rectangle, etc. With InnerLoop it took me some time to figure out how to it. I first tried to switch to emacs key bindings and go back to the keystrokes I knew, but they didn't work. I then found out the secret is to select the text with the right mouse button instead of the left. Using the right mouse button selects a rectangle and you can easily cut or copy it using the buttons at the top. I never would have guessed it.
Tab to Align Code
IL has the ability to correctly indent your code by using the Tab key. I think it's called "smart tab". Say you restructure some code and some lines are now indented too much. Instead of using delete to pull them back to the left you can hit tab and IL will do this for you and set the indenting to the correct amount. I guess the tab is not really a tab in this case since text may move left or right.
Edit Toolbar
One of the toolbars that is not automatically displayed is called "edit". There are two pairs of buttons on this toolbar that are useful to adjust the indent of the code. They are the ones with the orange boxes and blue arrows. If a block of text is selected they will move the code either right or left 1 level of indentation or just 1 space at a time (for fine tuning). There are many times when blocks of code must slide right or left and this is a great way to do it. Turn on this toolbar using View -> Toolbars -> Edit and give it a try.
Sunday, September 10, 2006
Open Toolbar
One of my favorite toolbars in InnerLoop is not even visible by default. It's called the "Open" toolbar. It's a directory and file browser that is a great help when working in InnerLoop. There are times when I'm working on a project and I would like to open files such as log files that are not part of the project. It seems inconvenient to me to use the File -> Open menu or even the icon of the folder at the top to open them because InnerLoop always seems to start the directory navigation from the wrong place. In fact, I'm not sure how it figures out where to start the directory navigation from (this is a good topic for the future). Many times it seems to be a place related to a different project I had previously loaded. Sometimes it seems to be related to where I store my project and workspace files (which may be nowhere near the actual files used in the project). Using the Open toolbar I can control the working directory that InnerLoop uses for many other commands and also have quick access to open files. I can also see the files in the directory structure without going to the Build tab and using it like a shell to type ls commands.
Enable the Open toolbar and give it a try. By default it will appear on the left side of the screen near the Project toolbar and the top part of the pane will be the files and bottom part is the directory tree.
One of my favorite toolbars in InnerLoop is not even visible by default. It's called the "Open" toolbar. It's a directory and file browser that is a great help when working in InnerLoop. There are times when I'm working on a project and I would like to open files such as log files that are not part of the project. It seems inconvenient to me to use the File -> Open menu or even the icon of the folder at the top to open them because InnerLoop always seems to start the directory navigation from the wrong place. In fact, I'm not sure how it figures out where to start the directory navigation from (this is a good topic for the future). Many times it seems to be a place related to a different project I had previously loaded. Sometimes it seems to be related to where I store my project and workspace files (which may be nowhere near the actual files used in the project). Using the Open toolbar I can control the working directory that InnerLoop uses for many other commands and also have quick access to open files. I can also see the files in the directory structure without going to the Build tab and using it like a shell to type ls commands.
Enable the Open toolbar and give it a try. By default it will appear on the left side of the screen near the Project toolbar and the top part of the pane will be the files and bottom part is the directory tree.
Thursday, September 07, 2006
Bookmarks
We discussed in the past how InnerLoop can navigate code by going to definitions and references for symbols. During this navigation InnerLoop keeps a stack of bookmarks and you can pop back out of the bookmark stack using ctrl-, There are also green arrow buttons on the toolbar at the top of InnerLoop to navigate up and down this stack of bookmarks. This makes it very easy to move around the code.
There are actually 2 kinds of bookmarks in InnerLoop. The 2nd kind is the ability to place a bookmark manually and return to it at any time. This is handy when there is a place you know you will need to keep referring back to and it's not easy to remember where it is.
To access this type of bookmark use the Search -> Bookmark menu item. Type in a bookmark name and hit Add to add this bookmark. You will see a little green arrow in source code indicating a bookmark.
To get back to a saved bookmark use Search -> Bookmark again and select the bookmark you want to return to and hit the Go To button and you are there. You can also use the Replace button to move bookmarks to a new location in the code.
These bookmarks are yet another way to provide easy and time saving navigation in the code. Give it a try.
We discussed in the past how InnerLoop can navigate code by going to definitions and references for symbols. During this navigation InnerLoop keeps a stack of bookmarks and you can pop back out of the bookmark stack using ctrl-, There are also green arrow buttons on the toolbar at the top of InnerLoop to navigate up and down this stack of bookmarks. This makes it very easy to move around the code.
There are actually 2 kinds of bookmarks in InnerLoop. The 2nd kind is the ability to place a bookmark manually and return to it at any time. This is handy when there is a place you know you will need to keep referring back to and it's not easy to remember where it is.
To access this type of bookmark use the Search -> Bookmark menu item. Type in a bookmark name and hit Add to add this bookmark. You will see a little green arrow in source code indicating a bookmark.
To get back to a saved bookmark use Search -> Bookmark again and select the bookmark you want to return to and hit the Go To button and you are there. You can also use the Replace button to move bookmarks to a new location in the code.
These bookmarks are yet another way to provide easy and time saving navigation in the code. Give it a try.
