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Bejoscha
New Member
Germany
7 Posts |
 Posted - Mar 15 2024 : 04:26:10 AM
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When creating bookmarks in VS, they are by default named "BookmarkN" with N being an incremental integer.
They are also automatically appended at the bottom of the bookmark list, regardless of any selection or folder structure in the bookmarks.
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I would like to propose the following improvements:
1) Bookmarks are not inserted at the bottom of the list, but at the bottom of the "folder" the current bookmark selection sits.
i.e. if my Bookmark panel has a selection in "Folder 2" and looks like this:
then I'd expect a new bookmark to be inserted like this:
2) When adding a bookmark: If the editor has some text selected, the text should become the name of the bookmark. If no text is selected, the bookmark name should become the name of the method in which the cursor sits (plus some incrementing integer).
3) When a bookmark is added, a modal dialog asks for the name of the bookmark, with the suggested name being as proposed in #2) There should be a VA setting to always/never show this dialog on adding bookmark, making the dialog optional. The text is preselected, so that one can easily overwrite it by just typing, or accept it by just pressing <return>
Closing the dialog should return the focus and cursor to where it was before adding the bookmark.
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Edited by - Bejoscha on Mar 15 2024 04:44:56 AM |
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feline
Whole Tomato Software
United Kingdom
18751 Posts |
Posted - Mar 15 2024 : 08:49:30 AM
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VA currently has nothing to do with the bookmark system, so this would be a significant undertaking, and I don't know how open to being extended the bookmark system is.
Are you aware of VA Hashtags? I know they are not the same thing, but I actually use them as bookmarks, to solve a similar set of problems. Since you can then easily search the hashtags window, it makes it quick and easy to find and jump to the reference you want, and you can jump between instances of the same hashtag with Alt-G.
https://docs.wholetomato.com/default.asp?W574 |
zen is the art of being at one with the two'ness |
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Bejoscha
New Member
Germany
7 Posts |
Posted - Mar 15 2024 : 10:17:37 AM
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I've recently learnt about the VA hashtags, but haven't used them so far. But bookmarks are usually something very temporary for me - mostly used during debugging or when working on a narrowed down subset of a bigger project. I wouldn't want to "pollute" the actual (shared) codebase in this workflow.
A shame that VA isn't (yet) accessing the bookmark-system. It's one of the things where "a little bit more convenience" could make all the difference in usability.
But I understand that effort vs impact might not be worth it right now. |
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feline
Whole Tomato Software
United Kingdom
18751 Posts |
Posted - Mar 15 2024 : 11:47:53 AM
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Another thought is the VA View tool window.
Assuming you are editing in these locations, if you right click in the top section of this window, you can turn On "Include modified methods" in the context menu. This will add these to the list of files and symbols you have jumped to from the two pull down lists. This will let you easily jump between just a few specific locations. Not the same, but no code editing required to set these "marks", they are all just things VA is remembering.
A second, but more manual, thought is that you can jump to specific line numbers and even column numbers via VA's Open File in Solution dialog. So if you know you want to keep on returning there, you can jump to:
test_large_file.cpp (1468, 14)
which will take you to line 1486 and column 14 in this file. The obvious problem with this approach is having to make a list of these locations to jump back to, but if you are keeping notes on your work, its a thought.
If you want to use this method though, please be aware there is a bug in our latest release that stops the OFIS dialog working correctly when you type a full filename. We are working on getting a fix for this released soon though. |
zen is the art of being at one with the two'ness |
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feline
Whole Tomato Software
United Kingdom
18751 Posts |
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Bejoscha
New Member
Germany
7 Posts |
Posted - Mar 15 2024 : 5:27:53 PM
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| The MRU list of "last modified methods" is definitely something useful I will see how I can adopt in my workflow, thanks. It doesn't quite fit my bill for the bookmark-workflow, but it is providing some other helpful shortcuts. |
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feline
Whole Tomato Software
United Kingdom
18751 Posts |
Posted - Mar 18 2024 : 11:47:50 AM
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| Hopefully this helps. I am not totally against putting in a feature request to try and update the bookmarks feature, but that won't be a quick and easy change. So trying to find you something that is already present in VA that will actually help seems like a good focus. |
zen is the art of being at one with the two'ness |
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Improvements to Bookmarking
