Editable Macros

Ideas for new features

Moderators: AmigoJack, bbadmin, helios, Bob Hansen, MudGuard

How important is it to you, to have this feature implemented into future versions of TextPad?

Important, even if the size/efficiency of TextPad increases/degrades
134
69%
Somewhat important
41
21%
I'm okay either way
8
4%
Somewhat unimportant
4
2%
Unimportant, even if the size/efficiency of TextPad remains unaffected
6
3%
 
Total votes: 193

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skaemper
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Editable Macros

Post by skaemper »

YAFR (Yet another feature request :wink: ):

I'd really like to see some kind of a macro language, as available in other editors.
The semware editor was good at this several years ago already, UltraEdit's macro support isn't too bad either. Of course the "uppermost of the "toppermost" is Emacs' support for macros.
But I don't ask for that much.
It would be completely OK for me to have macros that are
  • Editable macros (Well, you can edit the current macro files too...)
    OK, how about: Editable, human readable and human understandable macros
  • I'd like do be able to pass arguments to the macros (numbers, strings, regexes...)
  • Not to forget the usual loops, branching etc.
  • Exception support (No wait! I'm just kidding. That's really not necessary)
Cheers

Stephan
"It's POLYMORPHIC!"
A former colleague
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jeffy
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Location: Philadelphia

:' )

Post by jeffy »

If anyone votes less than "Important, even if ...", please provide us your email address, phone number and home address (and times you can be reached, of course), so we can all harrass you.

:lol:
SD
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Joined: Fri May 23, 2003 9:09 am

Editable Macros

Post by SD »

I think it is the main feature missing in TextPad
Frank Fesevur
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Location: The Netherlands

Post by Frank Fesevur »

When (not IF :wink:) added, please use a third party language (like Python) and don't develop your own macro language.
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no.cache
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Post by no.cache »

One word: Yes.

:D
CJ
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Joined: Thu Apr 24, 2003 10:37 pm
Location: Vancouver, BC, Canada

Post by CJ »

Frank Fesevur wrote:When (not IF :wink:) added, please use a third party language (like Python) and don't develop your own macro language.
I agree 100%. Why reinvent the wheel when you can choose from many excellent text-handling scripting languages out there. I am partial to TCL myself (http://dev.scriptics.com).

:shock: Please not Perl!!!
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no.cache
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Post by no.cache »

CJ, Nial recommended that I look at PERL because of some of these hairy S/R functions I have to do. I am not a programmer though, and your post is, er, well . . . could a novice use PERL?

And then my second question, are these MACRO scripts difficult for a non-programmer like me to pick up? Have a good suggestion for a beginner like me? Thanks.

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Bob Hansen
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Post by Bob Hansen »

You asked:
And then my second question, are these MACRO scripts difficult for a non-programmer like me to pick up? Have a good suggestion for a beginner like me?
I highly recommend Macro Scheduler. I have mentioned it a number of times in this forum.

Excellent support, excellent forum (uses same forum software as TextPad).
Last edited by Bob Hansen on Sun Feb 29, 2004 4:44 pm, edited 2 times in total.
Tyriel
Posts: 25
Joined: Wed Jul 16, 2003 6:20 pm

Post by Tyriel »

I disagree, I don't think Textpad should become a programming language unto itself. Macro support is about the biggest "gravy" feature I can imagine in a text editor. In theory, I suppose this could be useful to the serious programmers using textpad, but I place a number of other requests ahead of this, because I think they would benefit more of the userbase, more of the time.
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rzed
Posts: 3
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Python for scripting please please please please please ...

Post by rzed »

Python as a macro language would push my rating of TextPad from 12 to 30 on a scale of 10.
joel
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Joined: Wed Nov 19, 2003 7:53 pm

Post by joel »

The particular choice of language doesn't mean much to me - so long as the current binary format is replaced/augmented with a human readable one, I'm happy.
If the binary format was documented, someone could probably write a simple assembler/compiler for it.
--Joel
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skaemper
Posts: 51
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Macro compiler

Post by skaemper »

As far as I know there is some activity in finding out how the marcos are compiled. After having found out enough about hte current macros, I suppose the next step would be to create a macro compiler-or-whatever-you-call-it.

If there are plans in making an already existing programming language, I'd vote for
a) not starting a language war [1] :D
b) offering an API for use with several languages. 8)
c) not even considering Ook or Brainf***

Anyway I'm doing a lot of text processing in my-currently-favourite-language already, so I'm not depending on that feature anylonger that much...

Have a good day, night (at my place), dawn or sunset!

Stephan


[1] but would kindly vote for Ruby anyway. :wink:
"It's POLYMORPHIC!"
A former colleague
Dcantor
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Location: Groton, CT

Implementation language

Post by Dcantor »

This would be a great feature for Textpad. There have been several requests for certain already existing scripting languages. Of course I have my own favorite language for such things, and it is TECO, but I don't expect anyone else to want that. Inventing your own language would be just fine.
Dave C.
Groton, CT
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ramonsky
Posts: 88
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Post by ramonsky »

Choice of scripting language?

A big YES vote goes to PHP, obviously, as it's designed as a text-processing language, and the code looks almost like C/C++.

Another YES vote goes to the new kid on the block, Python. Others have voted for this. The syntax is line-oriented, not block oriented (so blocks are marked by indentation instead of braces) so it looks a little strange to those accustomed to C/C++/Java/Javascript/etc. I'd prefer PHP, but I could live with Python.

And finally, a big NO to Perl. No way. Absolutely no way. We're way past unreadable Perl scripts these days. Let's not bring them back.

Jill
joel
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Joined: Wed Nov 19, 2003 7:53 pm

Post by joel »

On re-reading the thread, I'd go further and suggest a full command language. I don't know how many people here are familiar with sam (the unicode text editor from plan 9), but it makes a case for having a command language even in a mouse-centered editor.
http://plan9.bell-labs.com/magic/9down4 ... portok=yes has sam for windows among other things.

--Joel
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