Author Topic: idea for small additional feature on status bar  (Read 3737 times)

Offline frithjofh

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idea for small additional feature on status bar
« on: May 21, 2017, 08:17:01 pm »
hi everybody,

i would like to put to your consideration an addition to the status bar.

as shown in attached image, the new functionality would bring up a pop up menu when clicking the first field of the status bar. the menu would contain the names of all currently open files in alphabetical order, and by choosing one of the entries, activate that editor. the other current functionality of that field would remain unchanged.

my reasoning for this addition is, that for my use the open files plugin is a little bit overkill. i only want to see and be able to chose a specific editor, without having to recur to the little arrows on the editor. as the name of the active file is displayed already in the according field of the status bar, i find it rather user friendly to find this popup menu and functionality there. in fact i already implemented it on my machine and am using it all the time... ;)

what do the devs think about it?

regards

frithjof
« Last Edit: May 22, 2017, 09:34:47 am by frithjofh »
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Offline oBFusCATed

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Re: idea for small additional feature on task bar
« Reply #1 on: May 22, 2017, 08:55:36 am »
Are you talking about the windows taskbar or in fact you're talking about the status bar at the bottom of Code::Blocks?
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Offline frithjofh

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Re: idea for small additional feature on status bar
« Reply #2 on: May 22, 2017, 09:34:01 am »
shame on me...

i was talking about the status bar at the bottom of the main frame. please excuse my sloppiness...  :-[

i have corrected it
« Last Edit: May 22, 2017, 09:35:55 am by frithjofh »
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Offline oBFusCATed

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Re: idea for small additional feature on status bar
« Reply #3 on: May 22, 2017, 06:01:00 pm »
What are the benefits compared to:
1. the notebook arrows
2. alt-g

And how do you make such feature discoverable?
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Offline frithjofh

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Re: idea for small additional feature on status bar
« Reply #4 on: May 22, 2017, 06:14:29 pm »
replies:

1. the notebook arrows are fine when you have only one editor window open. if you have two or more open, in the worst case the open editor you want to see is on the third editor window, after you clicked through the arrows of the other two (in each direction of course). and if you have more than about 20 files open at a time, the notebook arrows are not really fast. using the mouse wheel is the same thing really... with the popup menu, you have a instant alphabetical list of all open editors, just one click to open it and another to choose the desired editor

2. as far as i can see alt-g lets you search for one specific file in all of the workspace files. my addition is just for finding one specif file among only the open files, and perhaps the name is long and cumbersome to write and one might not even know the exact spelling of it.

(3.) the discover-ability... this is the weakest point of my addition i think... but i came up with the idea mainly because i found myself more than once clicking (without really thinking) on the field of the status bar, where the name and path of the active editor is shown, and then noticing, after nothing happened, that i was kind of expecting to see a list of the other open files pop up...

but, alas, i started the thread, because i gave it a try, implemented it, and now find myself using it every day... that’s why i wanted to put it to the consideration of the devs: i found it to be quite usefull  ;) and not at all intrusive or complicated to implement
« Last Edit: May 22, 2017, 06:17:12 pm by frithjofh »
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Offline oBFusCATed

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Re: idea for small additional feature on status bar
« Reply #5 on: May 22, 2017, 09:34:29 pm »
1. There is an option to enable an arrow pointing down that shows a menu and does exactly as the change you're proposing
2. You can type part of the name or a wild card
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Offline Jenna

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Re: idea for small additional feature on status bar
« Reply #6 on: May 22, 2017, 09:42:10 pm »
1. There is an option to enable an arrow pointing down that shows a menu and does exactly as the change you're proposing
It's not exactly the same: if you use multiple editor windows by dragging and dropping editors to group them, the arrow only shows the editors of the group they belong to. And it's not alphabetically sorted.