RE: "Adobe Brackets like" editing in emacs

[arthur miller <arthur.miller@live.com>]

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Couldn't feature be mimicked if a widow is split in 3 parts horsontally, with follow mode, so
that first and last window display original file, and window in the middle new file?

Something like this in this mockup: http://nextpoint.se/bc/e1.png

(Sorry my darkc harcoal theme is kind-a not very pedagogic indeed).

I would be fine with implementation like this, if I could say mark a property and have shortcut to automatically
bring in function/class member/property/etc in window below, and when I am done to remove the window.

It does not even have to split window, it could just divide into two windows, one with original file, and one with
new file, and when editing is done, just close window with new buffer. Possibly one could add a list of all files with
the property as in Brackets. Here is another screen of a possible mockup: http://nextpoint.se/bc/e2.png  (ignore data 
in buffers of course).

Couldn't it be done with elisp already? Maybe there is something similar? For example, C-X C-F shows a buffer with
completitions, which disappears when completition is done. It does not have to be exactly as in Brackets. 

I see it just as a faster way to work with files; let editor bring in files and correct place to edit, under the cursor, 
rather than user bring cursor to switch between buffers, files and finding place to edit. Even
 if it is not difficult to 
press C-X o, I use it all the time, this is 
indeed a bit of time saver. Think also of pressing C-X C-F and typing
 file names. 
When in different folders, one has to switch to another 
buffer or to edit folder name in minibuffer and so on.

Isn't difficult part more semanitc one - to find relevant data in other files. Emacs needs ctags or CEDET, to
implement functionality like jumping to variable declarations and funtion definitions. As said, I am not so knowledgable
about Emacs internals and writing modes; my knowledge of elisp and Emacs internals is sadly limited to edit .emacs file.
I am just an user; that is why I am asking experts in this list for opinion and help :). Hope you bear with me.

> From: phillip.lord@newcastle.ac.uk
> To: rms@gnu.org
> Subject: Re: "Adobe Brackets like" editing in emacs
> Date: Thu, 20 Mar 2014 11:04:29 +0000
> CC: adatgyujto@gmail.com; emacs-devel@gnu.org
> 
> Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org> writes:
> > That implementation would be convenient if we want Emacs commands
> > to treat the two as separate windows.  Is that what we want?
> >
> > Likewise with the proposal to use a tooltip-like frame for this.
> >
> > Likewise with the proposal to use display-strings for this.
> >
> > There are many ways to _show_ text from multiple files.  The crucial
> > question is, how do we want editing commands to work in that mode?
> > That will constrain the possible implementations much more.
> >
> > We might want to create a C-level construct for showing parts of
> > various buffers as if they were a single buffer, and arrange for
> > editing primitives such as insert and delete to operate on
> > the underlying buffer for the part of the text where you do them.
> 
> 
> I think it might be worth considering whether we want something a bit
> more generic at a C-level.
> 
> At the current time, the feature cannot be mimiced in Emacs because of
> the lack of an appropriate GUI feature (tooltips is the closest).
> 
> My thought, is what we need is a new GUI feature that I call
> "mini-window". Essentially, this would be like a current window (with
> all the features would expect -- point, buffer and so on). But it would
> differ from a current window in that: a) it would have no or few
> decorations -- no border, no scrollbars, no mode line and b) it's
> positioning would be wrt another window -- it would either be positioned
> at one of the cardinal positions of an existing window or it would be
> positioned wrt a marker or an overlay in an existing buffer. The latter
> would scroll with the main buffer, the former would be static.
> 
> With this GUI feature, we could implement quite a few other things. So,
> the multi-file editing would be use miniwindows positioned on a marker.
> Multi-mode editing could do the same (i.e a miniwindow with an indirect
> buffer in a different mode). Enhanced drop-down, tooltips for
> documentation could use the same feature (i.e. what would appear to be
> an in-window replacement for `with-help-window').
> 
> Other features would include the open and close hide/show markers down
> the left side of a buffer which Eli was talking about a few weeks ago --
> I had a brief play with this and it *might* be possible with fringes but
> it's clunky. And yet another would be one of those displays showing an
> shrunken overview of the whole buffer, like sublime -- currently the
> closest to this is fisheye-with-thumbs
> http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/FisheyeWithThumbs. For that matter, this
> could also be used to replace and reimplement the fringes.
> 
> Just a thought -- in the ideal world an update to the C layer should
> give a generic toolkit that can then used in different ways.
> 
> Phil
> 
 		 	   		  

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