| Author |
 Topic  |
|
|
eddie
New Member
9 Posts |
 Posted - Nov 29 2006 : 2:55:39 PM
|
Hello!
I'm a huge fan of Visual Assist -- I couldn't imagine using Visual Studio without it.
I do have a quick suggestion - please let me know if this is already underway or if I'm asking for something stupid. :)
Anyhow, I was thinking it would be nice if AutoText was shipped in a minimally stripped down set, with the option of installing 'autotext packages' that offer the other auto-text snippets.
I appreciate having AutoText for the basic data types, and for my basic C++ constructs, but probably 50-75% of the AutoText samples that are shipped are never used by me - nor a lot of my cohorts.
Ideally I'd love a fresh install of VA to *not* have any AutoText, or have a checkbox to *install* the autotext samples, and allow users to start off with a fresh slate.
Then, users would be able to install packs of AutoText snippets -- this way you could have a 'basic', 'intermediate' and 'advanced' set of packages (perhaps even have them in the installer as an option?) that users could then install as they see fit -- or better yet, have users export their autotext and then send them to others. This would help me keep my settings in sync between my multiple computers.
Just a thought -- I *do* like AutoText a lot, but I loathe keeping it in sync, I hate trimming down all the AutoText I don't use, and I can't imagine keeping all those definitions in memory can be cheap.
Anyhow, thanks for your great work, and I hope you consider my suggestion.
Cheers,
-e- |
|
|
feline
Whole Tomato Software
United Kingdom
18943 Posts |
Posted - Nov 30 2006 : 11:14:23 AM
|
We discussed a vaguely similar idea internally when the new autotext system was released. One basic problem is where to the packs of autotext entries come from?
I have tried to encourage discussion of interesting autotext rules on the forum on several occasions, but it has never really taken off.
http://docs.wholetomato.com?W264
http://forum.wholetomato.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=4353
Personally I long ago scrapped most of the default entries and have constructed a load of custom entries that suit what I do, and every now and then I start experimenting to see what other interesting things I can make autotext do  |
zen is the art of being at one with the two'ness |
 |
|
|
eddie
New Member
9 Posts |
Posted - Jan 05 2007 : 2:07:36 PM
|
Sorry it's taken me so long to get back - I didn't get a reply notification and I just thought I'd check up on it now.
Can you elaborate on "where to the packs of autotext entries come from"?
I'm unsure as to whether you mean, "who builds the packs?", or "how does Visual Assist look up the packs?" etc?
Because what I was thinking, is that Visual Assist could simply 'merge' packs into it's .TPL files (it looks like it would support concatenation nicely?), no? If you just have a function in the AutoText entry to 'import' external .TPL files (or zips of .TPL) files, you could then make it very user friendly.
... no? I'd appreciate your thoughts. |
|
|
|
feline
Whole Tomato Software
United Kingdom
18943 Posts |
Posted - Jan 05 2007 : 6:04:59 PM
|
Assume that a pack of C++ autotext entries contains 20 items. Where do these 20 items come from? Who dreams them up? Different people have different ideas on what makes a good autotext rule. This is not an insurmountable problem, but it is worth keeping an eye on
If we view this pack of 20 new items as a plain text file, and the existing tpl file as a second plain text file then they can simply be merged together, or the new 20 items appended. At the level of processing plain text files this is very easy.
The flip side is what effect will this have on the users autotext rules? Assume for the moment that someone has set up a rule with the shortcut "tr" and then we add 2 new rules with the shortcut "tr". Any form of automatic merging ultimately boils down to append and sort, since we cannot make any reliable assumptions about everyone's autotext file. This is likely to change what happens when they type "tr", which is not what we want.
*considers* since the autotext listboxes respect the order of items in the file, appending additional rules to the bottom will actually work, since the new entries appear at the bottom of the autotext list, so they do no disrupt any existing lists. Of course this assumes the installer can be talked into cat'ing one file onto another.
The next question is simply, is this worth the work for the installer? winmerge is a free and simple method of merging two tpl files together manually. |
zen is the art of being at one with the two'ness |
|
|
|
eddie
New Member
9 Posts |
Posted - Jan 22 2007 : 10:41:33 PM
|
Well, I suppose for now I'll just maintain my own .tpl file that I'll manually overwrite the default install of VA's. It is unfortunate however, since the majority of what's shipped is cruft - or at least I find.
Anyhow, I didn't know where these TPL files resided before, so I thank you for that information at least.
Thanks. |
|
|
|
feline
Whole Tomato Software
United Kingdom
18943 Posts |
Posted - Jan 23 2007 : 08:31:44 AM
|
When you install a new version of VA simply say no when it asks you if you want to install the default autotext.
As for what we ship, if you have useful suggestions then we are certainly interested in hearing them. The basic set are designed partly as very useful items and partly as ideas to get people started. |
zen is the art of being at one with the two'ness |
|
|
| |
Topic |
|
|
|
Increasing AutoText's usefulness
