Tabs' structure visualisation

[LonelyPixel]

Don't know how this is commonly called, but just have a look at Gel Java IDE (http://www.gexperts.com/screenshot.html). They have a very helpful feature: you can enable a dotted vertical line following the tabs' structure of a document. This looks a bit like the following (also see linked screenshot above):

Code: Select all

int main()
{
|   if (anything)
|   {
|   |   doNothingLoop();
|   |   andSomeMore();
|   }
|   return -2;
}

They also let you configure the colour of this line, of course. I've set it to a very light gray, just a bit darker than the current line highlighting (which they also have and I was quite surprised to see in TP...).

What do you think about it?

[CyberSlug]

If you indent blocks of code with tabs, then you can get similar behavior already in TextPad:
View > Visible Spaces
You may also want to go to Configure > Preferences > View
then scroll down and uncheck the boxes for paragraphs and spaces.

That said, I think your idea is really good and could easily incorporated into TextPad.

[maniac]

yeah, I really like this idea - something like a simple dotted line (that you can change the color of) would be nice...visibl space helps, but usually has too much clutter

[LonelyPixel]

And I'd extend my suggestion a bit, again:
This line should not only be displayed for {...} blocks of C-like programming languages, but also for tab-indented text files. So if I write a more or less structured collection of thoughts and information, I'd like to see that line there, too.

BTW, is some developer reading this, too, or are there only users/customers chatting about how this world could be even more fascinating? Please excuse this expression, I'm not familiar with what weight these suggestions may have.