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JDlugosz
New Member
USA
3 Posts |
 Posted - May 17 2010 : 3:02:07 PM
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I've been using Source Insight as a program editor since 1997, when it was nominated for the Jolt Awards. It seems to be nearly orphaned though, with no updates to the C++ parser in a long time and no response from the developers anymore. So, when I start using new language features available in VS2010, I may be forced to find a new editor.
I've seen demonstrations that the VS2010 editor provides for "rich text", in a proof-of-concept add-on that shows comments in italics. But what I'm really wanting, a "killer feature" that has had me loving SI since v3, is the rich formatting including:
proportional font (not fixed-pitch typewriter!)
enlarged names for declarations, like making them into headers
I looked at this site because I heard that it makes "Intellisense" more useful (e.g. more like what I've been used to for the last 13 years), and looking at the screen shots it appears to have some very similar features with respect to automatic context highlighting and the lower context window. I'm hoping that V.S. allows a mode where I can have multiple document windows rather than tabs.
So, I wonder, what is your plan for this kind of "rich formatting" support? Is there anything else out there that does this, and is current?
--John
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gmit
Whole Tomato Software
Croatia
90 Posts |
Posted - May 17 2010 : 4:43:35 PM
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| I've used Source Insight many years ago and I agree - having large font for function names would be a great feature! :) |
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feline
Whole Tomato Software
United Kingdom
19024 Posts |
Posted - May 18 2010 : 12:18:44 PM
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In the IDE's before VS2010 VA is applying its syntax colouring without the IDE's knowledge, and we are drawing over the top of the IDE's text, so we have to keep our text the same size as the IDE's text.
I am not sure if the situation is exactly the same in VS2010, but I suspect it is quite similar. Making the text for a function name larger will involve moving all of the following text, and markers, around on the screen.
Personally I have VA configured to show function names in a shade of orange, a colour that stands out quite clearly while still being nice, so that I can instantly pick the function names out from the rest of the code. |
zen is the art of being at one with the two'ness |
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JDlugosz
New Member
USA
3 Posts |
Posted - May 18 2010 : 2:32:55 PM
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Here's what it looks like. This is close to "out of the box", and the function names are both larger and shadowed. I found with that effect, I don't need the "lines" between functions like I have on this old file.
You can't see in the screen shot, but the caret is within the word "Lifetime" and that makes the context window (bottom) show the class that it's statically typed as. It shows different things in different situations.
The left (part of each document window) is a symbol list, which can be sorted, filtered, etc.
Other "rich" effects you see are the same-line comments in italic, and of course the whole thing uses proportional type, not a fixed-pitch font. Once you try it, there's no going back. What's more readable for prose is just as true for code!
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feline
Whole Tomato Software
United Kingdom
19024 Posts |
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JDlugosz
New Member
USA
3 Posts |
Posted - May 19 2010 : 4:28:52 PM
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| The new VS2010 editor does font effects now, and I just wanted to point that out. I saw a simple demonstration where comments were changed to italic. So hopefully VA or other products will take advantage of that some day. |
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gmit
Whole Tomato Software
Croatia
90 Posts |
Posted - May 19 2010 : 5:34:37 PM
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Feline, this is actually possible in VS2010, at least in theory.
If you're interested, try SnoopWPF utility, go into VS2010 and at about 60th level of depth (!), you'll actually find each line of text editor as an WPF object on which you can change properties such as font size.
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znakeeye
Tomato Guru
379 Posts |
Posted - May 25 2010 : 03:01:20 AM
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| Perhaps you should edit the WPF settings instead of drawing (in software) on top of the text? VS 2010 uses hardware accelerated drawing, which you effectively make useless here :P |
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feline
Whole Tomato Software
United Kingdom
19024 Posts |
Posted - May 25 2010 : 12:49:40 PM
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znakeeye I am not sure about the technical details of the drawing in VS2010, but I do know it is different in VS2010 to earlier IDE's, due to the changes in the IDE.
But editing the WPF settings like this would make this an IDE specific feature, and no doubt generate requests for it to be back ported to earlier IDE's, where these techniques would not be possible. |
zen is the art of being at one with the two'ness |
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sean
Whole Tomato Software
USA
2817 Posts |
Posted - May 26 2010 : 12:28:34 AM
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| The coloring and highlights that VA applies to the editor in VS2010 are done via public MEF/WPF interfaces. Just about everything requested here can be accomplished right now if someone took the time to build a UI that exposed all of the properties that the vs2010 editor supports. Not just font face and size and color, but also opacity, bold, italic, etc. Basically, someone needs to rewrite the Fonts and Colors page of the VS2010 Tools | Options dialog. It's sort of a race against Microsoft. I think that they would have done it themselves if they had the time. Maybe they'll fix it in a service pack? Or maybe someone who works on VS will release their own extension? |
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peterchen
Tomato Guru
126 Posts |
Posted - Jun 22 2010 : 03:50:29 AM
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Even though this looks like a good idea, there's an (unfortunate) point against this idea: even if VA gets that working, it would probably break other addins that assume a fixed line height.
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gmit
Whole Tomato Software
Croatia
90 Posts |
Posted - Jun 22 2010 : 09:14:50 AM
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Peterchen, if you scroll slowly in VS2010, you'll notice that line height already varies by 1 pixel (I can see that on all my computers).
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Ever see "Source Insight"?
