Improvement suggestions...What do you think?

[Jeff Epstein]

http://equity.wharton.upenn.edu/~epstei ... tions.html

A small while back I did some brainstorming, and composed a comprehensive list of improvement suggestions. A few items are a bit out of date (like, creating a community with a user forum! Yay! :' ), but, by and large, they still are quite applicable.

Clearly, TextPad rocks my world, which is why I enjoy putting so much thought into what, I think, could make it even better.

What do people think about these suggestions? Thanks!

[Alan Bellows]

Good suggestions.... how about these, too:

1. "Search/Replace in Workspace" option... searches all files in current workspace
2. Bold/Italic options in syntax highlighting
3. Ability to split the document screen vertically without synchronized scrolling
4. Document selector still visible on full-screen mode
5. Hex editor (not just viewer)

Don't get me wrong, TextPad is a great product, even lacking these minor features. Thanks.

Alan Bellows
Software Engineer, EpixTech

[Alan Bellows]

Oh, I remembered another: A "Save Copy As" option, like Paint Shop Pro. It works like Save As, but after the save the active document is still the original document, not the new file with the new filename.

Alan Bellows
Software Engineer, Epixtech

[Erland Sommarskog]

Hm, none of the points on that list really triggered my senses. But we all have different needs!

My number 1 wishlist item is a possbility to clone a tool. In my shop we all a tool to load database objects, but
we run it with different parameters depending on which database we talk with. Using the parameter prompt
to change everytime is a nuisance so everyone define a tool for each database they talk with. Therefore cloning
a tool with parameter string, regexp for error messages etc, would be a smash-hit among me and my colleagues.

Erland Sommarskog
Abaris AB, Stockholm

[Andreas]

Alan,
#1 on your list is already possible.
In the search/replace box, there is a framed box labeled "scope".
You can select the "Selection", the "Active Document" and "All Documents".
As all open documents are in your workspace, this is what you need.
-------------------------------
Erland,
just a suggestion:
create all the tools on one machine.
To do this, create the first tool in textpad.
Close all open textpad instances (important!)
Then use regedit and export
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Helios\TextPad 4\Tools\<yourtoolnumber>.
Change the tool number, name and parameters in the reg file as necessary.
Then import again.
Repeat till you have all the tools you want.

Now export
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Helios\TextPad 4\Tools
from registry and import it on all the other machines.
(But take care no tools you still need are overwritten in the process - if necessary edit the key names (i.e. the tool numbers) in .reg file)

I know this is not the best way to clone a tool, but it seems to me the easiest at this time. Hopefully there will be implemented an easier way in a future release of textpad, but this is up to the people at Helios.
----------------------------------
What I'd like to see in a future textpad is another radiobutton in the aforementioned scope of replace: "bookmarked lines".
--------------------------------
Andreas

[moderator]

Hi All

If you wish to send in enhancement suggestions please use the form at:

http://www.textpad.com/support/index.html

This forum is not for enhancement suggestions. If you use the form on our support page then your suggestions will be considered for future versions of TextPad.

Cheers

Heidi

[mike]

i'd like to see vi keystroke emulation. and i agree hex editing is huge! i also think textpad should by default open files in hex mode, and have a menu option to switch between text edit and hex edit modes. it's kind of annoying to have to reopen the file and specify how to open the file. i understand i can do all this myself with file associations, but it would be nice to have an on the fly kind of feature, where i could change between the two modes with a mouse click or keystroke combo.

but vi keystroke emulation would be huge.

[Jeff Epstein]

> i'd like to see vi keystroke emulation.

What is preventing you from assigning the keystroke emulations yourself, via Configure --> Preferences --> Keyboard?

Is there something about VI that is too complicated for TextPad key commands to simulate? I'm not all that familiar with VI, but I do know it's user interface is a true paradigm shift, for us windows based users...

[Andreas]

Hello Heidi,

I just did as you suggested and send my enhancement requests.

Apart from that, are we allowed to discuss here which improvement suggestions we want?
After discussions we might send the suggestions the way you want it.
Sometimes it might be that one of us just has not found the way to do something in Textpad, so this user puts it here as improvement suggestion and some other user says: "this is possible, do this and that and then something else to get what you want".

Andreas

[moderator]

Hi Andreas

The forum was created for discussion relating to TextPad so if everyone sticks to that topic, it is fine.

If you would like enhancement suggestions to be considered by TextPad then you should send them using the form on the Support page. It is much easier for us to keep track of them that way.

Cheers

Heidi

[M. Moolhuysen]

Hello to you all,

I would like to see some "look and feel" enhancements, but before I sumit them to Textpad officialy, I would like to ask you if maybe it's already possible to implement the following features.

Is it possible to personalise the "hammer/number" icons, that refer to the macro tools, into more meaningfull custom made icons ?

I'm not very happy with the layout of the file compaire tool. I prefer to use the freeware tool ExamDiff, wich has a much clearer way of presentation.
Can I make Textpad using this external program for compairing, parsing the first two files that are open in Textpad automaticly ?

Greetings, M. Moolhuysen.

[robbage]

I'll add my support for the 'Hex edit' and 'switch between text and hex features. No point submitting the suggestions again I guess

[Chris Denesha]

A possible way to make the macro IDs unique would be to use GUIDs, Globally Unique IDs. The technology is in SQL Server and also in DLL files to ensure versioning. The algorith is based on date and time and something else unique from that computer, perhaps a cPU function? I don't know is it is a Microsoft technology.

I HEARTILY concur with improving the functionality of macros. I want the ability to see my steps and modify them, even if I get them from someone else. If they need to be compiled to work faster that is fine, but I would to be able to step through them for debugging. Source and compiled versions would do the trick, similar to programming.

I like the suggestion for sub-syntax definitions! They would work great for .asp files, where one syntax works inside the <% and %> brackets (the ASP code, which could be JavaScript, VBScript, or PerlScript - so it would have to be user configurable), and the rest outside (the HTML code). I'll also post this one myself as a suggestion.

Another suggestion I'll be posting is the ability on a Search Replace to use a regular expression just with one or the other. I had an instance where I was stripping some text from a file, and much of it was the same. I tried doing a Find with a long string and replace it with a tab, but in order to place the tab I had to turn on regular expressions. Then the find didn't work because it had several question marks and possibly other characters (I got the error 'Cannot find regular expression').

Another suggestion that I'll be posting is the ability to use variables in clipbooks. I like the selection option, where part of the clip goes before and part after the selection. But if I could prompt for more variables, I could copy/paste the selection into the clip for use in more than one position in that clip...

Good Thread! I also love textpad and try to get my friends and programming associates to use it. My *favorite* features are block copy/paste and unlimited file size. In fact, that is how I found it on the internet, when I was looking for an inexpensive alternative to Qedit, which had gone commercial with a sky-high price.

chris