Hi, I'm a very satisfied oXygen user (primarily working in XHTML and CSS), but I'd be happier still if it had the following simple enhancements: (I'm using oXygen 9.1 build 2007122116 on OS X Tiger) 1. Remember last Ctrl-E (wrap tags) value -- currently always defaults to 'a' 2. Improve Ctrl-E (wrap tags) to allow .class and #id attribute specification (e.g. I could Ctrl-E span.active and get <span class="active"></span> 3. Major annoyance (and arguably a bug): Don't clear clipboard when copying nothing (hitting Ctrl-C or X with nothing selected.) 4. Need shortcuts to make it easier to select attribute/value pairs and single tags (so that you don't have to drag-select around <tag> or attribute="value") Triple-click is already taken, so maybe Ctrl-click or something. 5. Cursor movement up/down: always remember x position from line to line, even after pasting. This is a little harder to explain. Basically, I'd like oXygen to behave like Textpad. Imagine you have a number of lines and you want to paste "<li>" in front of each. If I position the cursor in the right place for the first line, paste, then press down, I expect to be in the right place for the next line. But in oXygen, I'll be 4 characters to the right (from the end of the <li>) Bug fixes: 6. The "Delete Tag" keyboard shortcut on Mac (Cmd-Opt-X) doesn't work 7. The CSS validator doesn't recognise unitless line-height I'd appreciate it if you could consider these for a minor upgrade! (And anyone else reading this -- if you agree or disagree please say so.) francois -- francois@isotoma.com / Isotoma, Open Source Software Consulting Tel: 01904 567349 / Mobile: 07872 394273 / Fax: 020 79006980 Skype: fjordaan / http://www.isotoma.com Postal Address: Tower House, Fishergate, York, YO10 4UA, UK Registered in England. Company No 5171172. VAT GB843570325. Registered Office: 19a Goodge Street, London, W1T 2PH
I vote strongly for suggestion 1. There could also be an optional yes/no checkbox setting in Preferences so that no one is forced to use the feature: Remember last Ctrl=E tag (default=no) Suggestion 2 might be fairly straightforward to implement for CSS, where the class= attribute is a reasonable default for most CSS elements. It would be harder to implement universally for non-CSS XML formats, in which a given element might have dozens of possible attributes. How would oXygen know which attribute you mean to use? It might be more useful for oXygen's Ctrl-E to accept any tag appended with a dot as an attribute name for the selected element. Thus, to take a DocBook example, if I select phrase in the Ctrl-E dialog and then type an extra .condition (the dialog now reads phrase.condition), oXygen could know to translate this as <phrase condition="">selected text</phrase>. I still have to back up and fill in the condition name, but it's a timesaver even so. A pair of options in Preferences for CSS files could be: For Ctrl-E, use .name to mean class="name" For Ctrl-E, use .name to mean name="" (default if enabled with the above preference) -----Original Message----- From: oxygen-user-bounces@oxygenxml.com [mailto:oxygen-user-bounces@oxygenxml.com] On Behalf Of Francois Jordaan Sent: Wednesday, March 26, 2008 12:41 PM To: oxygen-user@oxygenxml.com Subject: [oXygen-user] Feature requests Hi, I'm a very satisfied oXygen user (primarily working in XHTML and CSS), but I'd be happier still if it had the following simple enhancements: (I'm using oXygen 9.1 build 2007122116 on OS X Tiger) 1. Remember last Ctrl-E (wrap tags) value -- currently always defaults to 'a' 2. Improve Ctrl-E (wrap tags) to allow .class and #id attribute specification (e.g. I could Ctrl-E span.active and get <span class="active"></span> 3. Major annoyance (and arguably a bug): Don't clear clipboard when copying nothing (hitting Ctrl-C or X with nothing selected.) 4. Need shortcuts to make it easier to select attribute/value pairs and single tags (so that you don't have to drag-select around <tag> or attribute="value") Triple-click is already taken, so maybe Ctrl-click or something. 5. Cursor movement up/down: always remember x position from line to line, even after pasting. This is a little harder to explain. Basically, I'd like oXygen to behave like Textpad. Imagine you have a number of lines and you want to paste "<li>" in front of each. If I position the cursor in the right place for the first line, paste, then press down, I expect to be in the right place for the next line. But in oXygen, I'll be 4 characters to the right (from the end of the <li>) Bug fixes: 6. The "Delete Tag" keyboard shortcut on Mac (Cmd-Opt-X) doesn't work 7. The CSS validator doesn't recognise unitless line-height I'd appreciate it if you could consider these for a minor upgrade! (And anyone else reading this -- if you agree or disagree please say so.) francois -- francois@isotoma.com / Isotoma, Open Source Software Consulting Tel: 01904 567349 / Mobile: 07872 394273 / Fax: 020 79006980 Skype: fjordaan / http://www.isotoma.com Postal Address: Tower House, Fishergate, York, YO10 4UA, UK Registered in England. Company No 5171172. VAT GB843570325. Registered Office: 19a Goodge Street, London, W1T 2PH _______________________________________________ oXygen-user mailing list oXygen-user@oxygenxml.com http://www.oxygenxml.com/mailman/listinfo/oxygen-user
I agree w/ Barton Wright on suggestion #1 -- it's a great idea. Yes, I know cmd-/ issues the Surround with [previous] command, but nonetheless, I often issue cmd-e before I remember I meant cmd-/. FJ> 6. The "Delete Tag" keyboard shortcut on Mac (Cmd-Opt-X) doesn't FJ> work If you mean ctl-opt-x to invoke the Delete Element Tags command, it works for me. (Also oXygen 9.1 on Mac OS X 10.5.)
I vote strongly for suggestion 1. There could also be an optional yes/no checkbox setting in Preferences so that no one is forced to use the feature: Remember last Ctrl=E tag (default=no)
Thanks to Tom Elliott, I learned that this is unnecessary. You can use Ctrl-Slash, which means, effectively, "repeat the previous Ctrl-E".
Suggestion 2 might be fairly straightforward to implement for CSS, where the class= attribute is a reasonable default for most CSS elements. It would be harder to implement universally for non-CSS XML formats, in which a given element might have dozens of possible attributes. How would oXygen know which attribute you mean to use?
Yes, my suggestion is pretty much for HTML/CSS only -- but very intuitive in that context, with the CSS .class and #id denotation. I don't have any suggestions for making it useful in a broader XML context, but I'd still love this feature. -- francois@isotoma.com / Isotoma, Open Source Software Consulting Tel: 01904 567349 / Mobile: 07872 394273 / Fax: 020 79006980 Skype: fjordaan / http://www.isotoma.com Postal Address: Tower House, Fishergate, York, YO10 4UA, UK Registered in England. Company No 5171172. VAT GB843570325. Registered Office: 19a Goodge Street, London, W1T 2PH
I really appreciate the responses from oXygen and the community. Here's a quick re-cap (I'll use Meta in place of Ctrl/Cmd.) 1. I learned that last Meta-E can be repeated with Meta-Slash. However, I'm not the only one to believe it would be more intuitive, with no negative side-effects, for Meta-E to simply remember the last value instead of always defaulting to 'a'. This would be especially useful if combined with my 2nd suggestion, allowing .class and #id in the Meta-E dialog.
When you hit Ctrl+C or Ctrl+X and nothing is selected in the editor the actions Copy and Cut are disabled. If they are disabled they cannot modify the clipboard. This is true for oXygen and other applications, on the Mac OS X and Windows machines where I tested these actions.
I have tested this repeatedly, and Meta-C and Meta-X certainly clears the clipboard when nothing is selected. I think what it is doing is Copying/Cutting the current line. Is this an option in Preferences?
5. Cursor movement up/down: always remember x position from line to line, even after pasting.
A unique, useful feature of Textpad, it seems. It will be considered for future inclusion -- thanks, Sorin.
6. The "Delete Tag" keyboard shortcut on Mac (Cmd-Opt-X) doesn't work
My mistake: I should've been using the Mac's Ctrl rather than Cmd. francois -- francois@isotoma.com / Isotoma, Open Source Software Consulting Tel: 01904 567349 / Mobile: 07872 394273 / Fax: 020 79006980 Skype: fjordaan / http://www.isotoma.com Postal Address: Tower House, Fishergate, York, YO10 4UA, UK Registered in England. Company No 5171172. VAT GB843570325. Registered Office: 19a Goodge Street, London, W1T 2PH
Hello, Francois Jordaan wrote:
1. I learned that last Meta-E can be repeated with Meta-Slash. However, I'm not the only one to believe it would be more intuitive, with no negative side-effects, for Meta-E to simply remember the last value instead of always defaulting to 'a'.
What do you mean always default to 'a'? Meta-E opens the Tag dialog with a combo box that contains all the valid tag names that can be inserted at cursor location. The valid tag names are extracted from the schema associated with the edited document.
I have tested this repeatedly, and Meta-C and Meta-X certainly clears the clipboard when nothing is selected. I think what it is doing is Copying/Cutting the current line. Is this an option in Preferences?
Yes, in version 9.1 Meta-C copies the current line when there is no selection. It was requested by other oXygen users. In version 9.2 we will add the option "Cut/Copy whole line when nothing is selected" for the text editor in Options -> Preferences -> Editor. With this option the function of cut/copy the whole line can be disabled. There is a conflict between your request and the request of other users about the Cut and Copy operations when nothing is selected. You are the only user that requested to clear the clipboard when nothing is selected in the editor panel. In fact I see that TextEdit which is a native Mac application and the native Windows applications that I tested do not clear the clipboard on Meta-C (Ctrl-C on Windows) or Meta-X (Ctrl-X on Windows) when nothing is selected. I did not test in other Mac editor applications. Do other users think that the Cut and Copy actions should clear the clipboard when nothing is selected? Regards, Sorin
What do you mean always default to 'a'? Meta-E opens the Tag dialog with a combo box that contains all the valid tag names that can be inserted at cursor location. The valid tag names are extracted from the schema associated with the edited document.
He means exactly that -- since he is using XHTML, 'a' happens to be the first valid tag name.
Yes, in version 9.1 Meta-C copies the current line when there is no selection. It was requested by other oXygen users. In version 9.2 we will add the option "Cut/Copy whole line when nothing is selected" for the text editor in Options -> Preferences -> Editor. With this option the function of cut/copy the whole line can be disabled. There is a conflict between your request and the request of other users about the Cut and Copy operations when nothing is selected.
Meta-comment: I think we'd do a lot better to be precise, and say CMD and CTL when we mean them, and not use META, which is something else. On the issue, I would really like the copy operation to do nothing if nothing is selected. If I make this mistake, I'd like the clipboard left alone. I hope this remains an option in the future.
You are the only user that requested to clear the clipboard when nothing is selected in the editor panel.
I don't think FJ was requesting the clipboard be cleared, I think he was complaining about it. (I could be wrong -- it's still early morning for my brain :-)
Hello, Syd Bauman wrote:
What do you mean always default to 'a'? Meta-E opens the Tag dialog with a combo box that contains all the valid tag names that can be inserted at cursor location. The valid tag names are extracted from the schema associated with the edited document.
He means exactly that -- since he is using XHTML, 'a' happens to be the first valid tag name.
Now I understand. We will make the tag inserted by the previous Surround operation the default item selected in the combo box of the Tag dialog invoked by Ctrl-E. For example if the previous Surround operation inserted <link> when Ctrl-E is pressed the "link" item will be selected by default in the combo box. If the dropdown list of the combo does not contain "link" the first item of the list will be selected.
I don't think FJ was requesting the clipboard be cleared, I think he was complaining about it. (I could be wrong -- it's still early morning for my brain :-)
In that case I did not understand correctly the request. In version 9.1 the clipboard is cleared only when there is no selection in the editor panel and the cursor is placed on an empty line. This happens because when there is no selection the Copy action copies the current line. Starting with version 9.2 the Copy action will copy the current line to the clipboard only when the option "Cut/Copy whole line when nothing is selected" will be selected. By default the option will not be selected so by default the Copy action will not modify the clipboard when there is no selection in the editor panel. Regards, Sorin
Hello, Francois Jordaan wrote:
3. Major annoyance (and arguably a bug): Don't clear clipboard when copying nothing (hitting Ctrl-C or X with nothing selected.)
When you hit Ctrl+C or Ctrl+X and nothing is selected in the editor the actions Copy and Cut are disabled. If they are disabled they cannot modify the clipboard. This is true for oXygen and other applications, on the Mac OS X and Windows machines where I tested these actions.
5. Cursor movement up/down: always remember x position from line to line, even after pasting.
I think it is a special feature of Textpad. I see that it is enabled by the option "Constrain the cursor to the text" of Textpad. I don't know other editor applications that remember the column number before a paste operation executed on the current line and when the cursor is moved with the up/down keys the cursor is positioned on the same column number on other lines. However we will consider your request for a future version of oXygen.
6. The "Delete Tag" keyboard shortcut on Mac (Cmd-Opt-X) doesn't work
It works for me. You should check from menu Options -> Preferences -> Menu Shortcut Keys if the shortcut for the action Delete Element Tags is Cmd+Opt+X in your oXygen preferences.
7. The CSS validator doesn't recognise unitless line-height
Thank you for reporting the problem. A numeric value of line-height without a unit like in, cm, pt, etc. should be accepted. We will have to improve the CSS validator in a future version of oXygen. Regards, Sorin
On Thursday, March 27, 2008, at 08:33AM, "Sorin Ristache" <sorin@oxygenxml.com> wrote:
5. Cursor movement up/down: always remember x position from line to line, even after pasting.
I think it is a special feature of Textpad. I see that it is enabled by the option "Constrain the cursor to the text" of Textpad. I don't know other editor applications that remember the column number before a paste operation executed on the current line and when the cursor is moved with the up/down keys the cursor is positioned on the same column number on other lines. However we will consider your request for a future version of oXygen.
FWIW, my coworkers and I laud this very feature of TextPad very often. It's surprising how intuitive and useful it is, and how much you miss it when moving to any other (even much better) text editors.
Gavin Kistner wrote:
On Thursday, March 27, 2008, at 08:33AM, "Sorin Ristache" <sorin@oxygenxml.com> wrote:
5. Cursor movement up/down: always remember x position from line to line, even after pasting. I think it is a special feature of Textpad. I see that it is enabled by the option "Constrain the cursor to the text" of Textpad. I don't know other editor applications that remember the column number before a paste operation executed on the current line and when the cursor is moved with the up/down keys the cursor is positioned on the same column number on other lines. However we will consider your request for a future version of oXygen.
FWIW, my coworkers and I laud this very feature of TextPad very often. It's surprising how intuitive and useful it is, and how much you miss it when moving to any other (even much better) text editors.
I'll second that. That and block-mode are two of the key features I still keep Textpad around for. Cheers, Eliot -- Eliot Kimber Senior Solutions Architect "Bringing Strategy, Content, and Technology Together" Main: 610.631.6770 www.reallysi.com www.rsuitecms.com
Hello, We will modify the double click action. A double click on an attribute name or an attribute value will select the whole the attribute. A double click on a single tag will select the whole tag including the '<' and '> characters. Regards, Sorin Francois Jordaan wrote:
4. Need shortcuts to make it easier to select attribute/value pairs and single tags (so that you don't have to drag-select around <tag> or attribute="value") Triple-click is already taken, so maybe Ctrl-click or something.
At 04:50 AM 3/28/2008, Sorin Ristache wrote:
We will modify the double click action. A double click on an attribute name or an attribute value will select the whole the attribute. A double click on a single tag will select the whole tag including the '<' and '> characters.
I have to confess I'm a bit nervous about this. Especially for (inside) attribute values, it seems that the normal "word select" semantics are both useful, and expected. I'm not saying for certain that this wouldn't be an improvement. But it ought to be widely tried first. (Or maybe something set from Preferences.) (Of course, were there a Preference setting I'd probably be first to use it.) Cheers, Wendell ====================================================================== Wendell Piez mailto:wapiez@mulberrytech.com Mulberry Technologies, Inc. http://www.mulberrytech.com 17 West Jefferson Street Direct Phone: 301/315-9635 Suite 207 Phone: 301/315-9631 Rockville, MD 20850 Fax: 301/315-8285 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Mulberry Technologies: A Consultancy Specializing in SGML and XML ======================================================================
participants (7)
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Barton Wright -
Eliot Kimber -
Francois Jordaan -
Gavin Kistner -
Sorin Ristache -
Syd Bauman -
Wendell Piez