Community

This suggestion has such high interest, I decided to create a poll for it.

Here's the original thread:

http://www.textpad.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=3906

Not only organize the workspace docs in a tree, but allow us to select a folder and auto-add all the files ( with a filter *.php, etc ) down through the folders structure. Kinda like HomeSite does.

Hi everybody,

verelse made a SUPER suggestion in the original thread (http://www.textpad.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=3906):

verelse wrote:The treeview could represent a true workspace. I am certain that the actual TWS file could be an xml document representing a hierchical structure of logical folders.
If the TWS/XML file were created properly, a file could exist in multiple folders.
...
Yikes! This format even allows setting an icon for your project folders.
I would PAY for this enhancement...so I can completely get that bloated visual studio off my machine and focus on the code.

I think this would be a milestone in development of workspaces. By using XML as storage format all ideas (starting with relative paths up to individual icons and treeview) could be fulfilled. Even for future enhancements this format provides the possibility to add them easily and this format could be manually changed/updated (if needed).

I hope this posting encouraged the TextPad programmers to think about this feature as TextPad is my favourite text editor I never want to miss!

Frank.

The possibility of grouping and rearranging of files in a workspace is very imortant feature for me. I usually work with rather big workspaces. The opening of one equals to opening all files in it. This is lingering and unneeded in general because I work on 10-30 files out of approximately 100-150 however I need all of them to be at hand.
I think it would be very useful if TextPad would load files only if it is required by the user. Moreover it could even save that state of file (loaded or not) in the workspace file.

I'd like to add my encouragement to the TextPad programmers to give these Workspace enhancement suggestions high priority. And I'd like to spell out a change that seems to be implicit in many of the suggestions:

files should be added to and deleted from a Workspace via explicit "add files to workspace" and "delete files from workspace" commands, not as the result of opening or closing files. In other words, it should be possible, and routine, to have closed files be part of a workspace.

rgoldhor wrote:It should be possible, and routine, to have closed files be part of a workspace.

Likewise, it should be possible to have opened files that aren't part of the workspace.

I'll second the last two suggestions

Here's another suggestion. (Could be an option).

Instead of organising the files in the document selector in alphabetical order, how about listing them in last-used order (so that the ones you're acutally using all get clumpted together at the top)?

This would also work for the files on the Windows menu.

Jill

PS. I realise this suggestion is mutually exclusive with other similar suggestions, but it's still worth thinking about.

Order of files in file selector can easily be optional... (Sort by option in context menu).

The .tws as XML some posts above definitely gets my vote though, since this would allow integration with anything not trying to monopolise through imposition proprietary binary formats. Great for integration with manifest...

...listing them in last-used order...

I second that... Dynamic w/ a refresh interval would be nice.

ramonsky wrote:I realise this suggestion is mutually exclusive with other similar suggestions, but it's still worth thinking about.

Not necessarily.

The document selector should have multiple views:

1. Alphabetical by filename
2. Alphabetical by full path
3. Most recently modified (stack)
4. Most recently viewed
5. Treeview (file-system)
6. Treeview (abstract project hierarchy)

And on and on and on.

There are lots of different ways to view a collection of files (more than just the six methods I've listed). And it would be great to be able to switch the views on-the-fly. In fact, it might even be nice to have two document selectors open at once, each using a different sorting method.

ramonsky wrote:how about listing them in last-used order (so that the ones you're acutally using all get clumpted together at the top)?

I third that...

This is really the only new feature I want in textpad. Pretty pretty please?

There's a lot here that seems swell to me, too.

A TextPad "project" treeview would be fantastic.

As a developer, I've gotten hooked on Visual Studio-Net IDE's "solution explorer" treeview even for non-.Net projects, despite my love for TextPad. It works much like the classic Windows Explorer treeview, but lets you include/exclude individual files/folders from the project. The IDE's "search files" functionality is limited to files included in the project, so you don't get search results from dead files, documentation, etc. -- even though you can open those files from the treeview.

A related wish-list item for TextPad would be something the VS-Net IDE's "task list" -- basically bookmark-like shortcuts that are listed in a dockable window (and preserved between editing sessions). It's great for jumping between functions in code files.