Opinions Needed

[LarryMc]

Currently looking at the activities that need to occur when files/projects/IDE are opened and closed.

There had been a request to open a project when one of the project's files is opened. (And I explained how that couldn't happen without a structure change.)

I had also mentioned in an earlier post that bookmarks would be saved whenever a file was closed. (I had intended for that to only apply to files that were open when the IDE is closed - that was to enable the IDE to be reopened to exactly where it was when it was last closed.

This morning I was looking into the technique I was going to use to save the bookmarks and I happened to remember a new directive that was added to the parser with the release of IWB 2.0.

$END - tells the parser that this point is the end of the file and not to process any text after this point.

That means I can actually store information on the tail end of a file.
I could store the path to one or more projects that the file belongs to as well as the list of bookmarks.

OPTION 1 - For the Idea
The parent project could be automatically opened each time a project member file is opened/gets focus.
Bookmarks would be there even if the file was closed prior to the IDE being closed.

Option 2 -Against the Idea
The opening of files/projects would remain as it is now.
Bookmarks would only be saved for files that are open when the IDE is closed.  Closing a file before the IDE close process would delete all the bookmarks for that file.

Option 3 - Don't Care
Either way is okay..

[billhsln]

Just to clarify.  Reason for my 'Don't care vote'.  Have never created any program with Project and have never used bookmarks.  Probably because I don't understand why to use them.  Not that I don't want to know, just have never found a need.

Bill

[Haim]

It is often useful to re-use sources for other projects or as stand-alone sources.
I vote for loading the project only when clicking on the project file itself, and not on any of it's sources.
HJ

[LarryMc]

Just to clarify.  Reason for my 'Don't care vote'.  Have never created any program with Project and have never used bookmarks.  Probably because I don't understand why to use them.  Not that I don't want to know, just have never found a need.

Bill

Hey, that's fine.  I had never used bookmarks.  However, I use the GO TO all the time; would feel handicapped without it; and had always wished it would store multiple entries.  As for using projects; that's what allows me to put all the images(toolbars,etc) into resource files and store it all in the exe instead of having to have a bunch of extra files sent along with the exe.
Also projects allow me to have multiple source files.  I can then dedicate individual files to certain functions of groups of functions.  Helps when I have problems to narrow down the area I have to look in.  It also allows me to have smaller files to work with when i coding. I can also use the same generic source file in multiple projects.

Thanks for voting and for commenting.

LarryMc

[Brian]

I vote FOR - I use Projects quite a lot. Having your bitmaps, versioninfo and manifest
stored in a resource is great

Brian

[Bruce Peaslee]

I'm in favor. Now that I've thought about it some more, I might even go further and suggest that one could open auxillary files, such as "myproject.inc", along with those that are actually in the project. This is the case when you start IWB and the previous project loads.

[friet]

And i'll probably play the devils advocate.. 

I would keep the bookmarks in a separate file (eg. *.bkm), when you open a file in the IDE, it looks for both the source file and a *.bkm file..

But keeping the bookmarks would definetly be a plus...it will save hours of searching your code.

My 2cts..

Cheers,

Frank

[LarryMc]

Thanks for those that voted and to those you stated their preference but didn't actually vote.

1. The whole idea with the new IDE is to make it as feature rich as possible and practical.
2. Features should be presented in such a way that features that aren't wanted are not forced on a particular user (where possible).

With that in mind, this is what I've decided to do:
When a new file is created I will create a file *.iwx that will be used to store the bookmarks and the parent project(if one exists).
If the user move or copies an *.iwb file to a different folder they will be responsible for copying or moving the associated *.iwx files.If

The IDE Preferences dialog will expanded as shown below:
There will be a user option to open all of a projects source files when a project is opened directly.

There will also be an option to open a project file when one of its child files is opened - in this situation the opening of the project would not open all source files even if the first option is chosen.
If the file belongs to more than one project then the user will be given a list to pick from.

I believe this will give the most flexibility.

But, this is a WIP so I'm always open for suggestions.

LarryMc