[Qt-creator] UI tweaks

[Ziller Eike]

On Jan 16, 2015, at 3:39 AM, walter walter <acppcoder at mail.com<mailto:acppcoder at mail.com>> wrote:

How many of the following tweaks would be reasonably easy to implement... (mostly inspired by xcode & emacs)
How many of these would be possbile with plugins, vs needing to modify QtCreators' main source.
For those that would require changes to qtcreator itself, how likely would they be to be accepted.

[1] selectable action for double-click on items in the project window: open in new window or in current view

Not sure what you mean with “selectable action”.

There currently is no public API for opening a new window, but it would be easy to implement.
---> EditorManager::OpenEditorFlag::OpenInNewWindow

Personally I find that behavior of Xcode pretty annoying.
(Double-click in tree = open in new window; single-click = open in main window; to open a file in an existing window you need to drag&drop to the window’s editor’s tool bar / crumble bar)
Another context menu item “Open in New Window” on the navigation tree would definitely be no problem IMO.
Whatever is done, should be done consistently through all navigation panes though. (I think currently we already have inconsistent single vs double click behavior, which would be good to unify as well.)

[2] hotkey to open definition in new floating window (alternative to 'jump-to-definition)

Currently there are “in next split” variants... it’s unfortunate that we’d begin accumulating actions, but maybe unavoidable. If anyone has a great idea, I’d like to know ;).
Anyhow, I’d say acceptable, if you find a common shortcut prefix (similar to the ^E,.... that we currently use for splits).
Like above, needs API in editor manager first.

[3.1] hotkeys to navigate tiled UI windows directionally, like emacs "windmove", eg move between tiled editor windows & project,class-browser, debugger windows. 'select-window-left' 'select-window-right' etc.
[3.2] or an option for floating project window, (debugger windows, ..) - so a suitable tiled window-manager can do the same job.

In principle it would probably be good to use a similar approach like for the debug, analyze and design modes.
I do not see how that could work with editor splits though (but possibly that could stay as a single widget), and making the different navigation panes separate will probably be tricky.
Also, I am still not really comfortable with how it works in debug, analyze & design (auto-hiding headers that get in the way when they show up). So I think I would not want that yet for *the* main mode in Qt Creator where most people spend most time in.

[4] UI appearance preference: change text in panels from white to black if selecting a light colour; (just change the look of the pane titlebars to look more like xcode's default colourscheme,a  bit more understated)
(+maybe generally getting a universal light or dark theme for the whole UI)

There is experimental theming and an experimental dark theme in Qt Creator 3.3.

[5] option to show source/header 'counterpart' if it exists, viewed side by side like X-Code does.

https://bugreports.qt.io/browse/QTCREATORBUG-699
and some related tasks

[6] option for dot-autocomplete to pre-emptively implement **UFCS**
-include member functions taking the 1st type in the dropdown..
-initially,just rely on the user to cleanup the position of the 1st parameter;
-then introduce a toggle to just insert a function call. eg "a.foo(" rewrites as "foo(a,"  when you select it
-If someone forks a C++ compiler to implement UFCS, it would work with it.
-non-member functions could always appear later than free-functions in the completion list, for those worried about polutting the suggestions).

[8] 'quick find symbol-or-file' similar to what shift-cmd-O does in xcode - same dialog browses both symbols & filenames

[cid:DDD56846-8042-4B84-83BF-EAEE87ECED7F at it.local]

Choose configure there (or Preferences > Environment > Locator, and
- select “C++ Classes, Enums and Functions”, “Edit...” and remove the “Limit to prefix” check mark, to include classes, enums and functions in the locator search by default, in addition to files, or
- assign whatever filters you sometimes want to use together to the same “prefix” and use that with Cmd+K,<your_prefix><space><searchterm>.

Br, Eike

--
Eike Ziller, Senior Software Engineer - The Qt Company GmbH

The Qt Company GmbH, Rudower Chaussee 13, D-12489 Berlin
Geschäftsführer: Mika Pälsi, Juha Varelius, Tuula Haataja
Sitz der Gesellschaft: Berlin, Registergericht: Amtsgericht Charlottenburg, HRB 144331 B

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