Separate Favorites/Recent menus, shortcut to stay on top

Ideas for new features

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

Post Reply
pqee
Posts: 3
Joined: Sat Aug 27, 2005 11:57 pm

Separate Favorites/Recent menus, shortcut to stay on top

Post by pqee »

Here's a couple of enhancements I'd love to see in some future version:

- Separate menus for Recent and Favorite files. This should work well with Textpad since it doesn't have many menus to begin with unlike most of it's competitors. (6 with Textpad vs 9/10 for Ultraedit, Notetab Pro, EditPlus etc...). Even with this feature it will still have less menus.

- A toolbar button and keyboard shortcut to en/disable the Always on Top option. (Unless there is one I haven't found yet).


Thanks!
ben_josephs
Posts: 2461
Joined: Sun Mar 02, 2003 9:22 pm

Re: Separate Favorites/Recent menus, shortcut to stay on top

Post by ben_josephs »

pqee wrote:- Separate menus for Recent and Favorite files.
Are workspaces an alternative to a list of favourite files that suit your way of working?
pqee wrote:- A toolbar button and keyboard shortcut to en/disable the Always on Top option.
In Configure | Preferences select Keyboard.
In Categories select View.
In Commands select StayOnTop, type a new shortcut key and Assign it.

I don't know anything about toolbar buttons. I don't use them.
pqee
Posts: 3
Joined: Sat Aug 27, 2005 11:57 pm

Post by pqee »

Thanks for the 'Stay on top' keyboard shortcut, I completely missed it in there.

As for the Workspaces, they seem to only help if you always edit the same groups of files at a time.

I usually only have a handful of unrelated files I go back and forth to but rarely ever need them all opened at once so I doubt workspaces would help. With a favorites menu, I could just pick and choose which ones to open and add new ones if I find I'm editing the same one often.

(I'm currently using Metapad as my Notepad replacement that has the separate favorites and recent files menus but I'm trying to find a bigger, more feature rich program to replace it and so far Textpad is tops on my list).
ben_josephs
Posts: 2461
Joined: Sun Mar 02, 2003 9:22 pm

Post by ben_josephs »

You can implement an approximation to a favourites list with a variation of the following:

Put the names of your favourites files, one per line, in a file, say, C:\path\to\your\favourites.

In Configure | Preferences select Tools.
Add a DOS Command, called, say, Favourites.
Select Apply.

Back in the panel on the left, open the Tools subtree.
Select the Favourites tool you just created.

Parameters: type C:\path\to\your\favourites
[X] Capture output
Regular expression to match output: (.+)
Registers: File: 1

The regular expression assumes you are using POSIX regular expression syntax:
Configuration | Preferences | Editor

[X] Use POSIX regular expression syntax
When you run this tool, the list of file names will appear in the Command Results window. Each file name will be a hyperlink to the file named, which you can follow by typing return or clicking on it. You can, of course, add commentary to the file, which won't cause any fuss if you don't try to use it as a hyperlink.

(You can use the US spelling of favourites if you please. :-))
pqee
Posts: 3
Joined: Sat Aug 27, 2005 11:57 pm

Post by pqee »

Thanks for the suggestion. I'll give it a shot when I get home. It should hold me over until my feature is added. :wink:


PS. I thought I was using the US spelling of favorites...I can switch to the british version if you prefer...favourites (which I should be using anyways since I'm from Can). :D
Post Reply