SEP #44: Scilab History Browser

[Samuel Gougeon]

Hello Sylvestre,

----- Message d'origine -----
De : Sylvestre KOUMAR
Date : 20/04/2010 08:58:
> Hello,
>
> Please find attached SEP #44 : Scilab History Browser.
> It deals about the new history browser which will be added to Scilab.
>
> All questions  and comments are welcomed.
Sorry for the lag. Thank you for this very nice proposal.
I am sure that all users will appreciate as i already do this Scilab's 
increase
of ergonomics, in addition to the previous ones (docking, atoms, 
forthcoming
improved browsevar, etc).
Here are some mixed comments, questions, and suggestions about the
version #1 that you posted 2 weeks ago.

Look forward to discussing them in a constructive way witt all future
users and developpers,

Best regards
Samuel

----------------
* About the *function's name*: Why not /browsehistory /(for consistency 
with the already
  existing /browsevar/), instead of /commandHistory/ ? That will be 
really a browser.

* About the *displaying window*:
  - Will there be one instruction per line, or one command line per 
line, provided
   that a command line may chain several instructions?
  - How will comments be managed? Will they be displayed, or removed from
    the history and display (2 cases: commented line, and inline ending 
comments)
  - No scrollbar is described. One can guess that there will be at least 
a vertical
    scrollbar (despite that e.g. the ATOMS interface initially forgot 
it). It would be
    nice to include it in the SEP
  - As well, management of the display of long lines is not mentionned. 
This is a
    major concern, since this interface will be mainly docked and 
usually quite
    narrowed. This can be managed either with a horizontal scroll bar -- 
which is
   usually quite boring --, or through a tooltip displaying the whole 
line (which is
   IMO much more handy).
 - How will big litteral matrices entered with copy/past be displayed?
 - Will for/end, try/end, if/end, while/end, select/end, 
function/endfunction main blocks
   be recursively foldable (as e.g. with Notepad++)? This would be a useful
   item, to copy/paste only coherent conditionnal or other blocks.
   Sub-blocks starting with then, catch, else, elseif are more difficult 
to detect/parse
   and much less useful to fold.

* About the *context menu*:
  - The difference between /Cut/ and /Delete/ is not clear for me. At 
first sight, they
   appear as puzzling duplicates... Are they really useful together?
  - To be added: The /'Help page for..."/ action asked by Sylvestre L. 
for Xpad
    and implemented for it is really handy! It would be nice to have it 
also in
    /browsehistory/ (noticeably because /browsehistory/ can be a useful 
tool for
    building tutorials for students)
 - Add an  /"Edit"/ command opening Xpad for the first editable function 
belonging
   to the selection. In order to not get confused with the planned 
/"Edit as text file"/
   action, this one could be renamed /"Send to the editor"/
 - A last suggestion would be to add a /"Hide/Show comments"/ action
  (depending on how comments are considered)

* About the *settings pannel*: Here is a list of ideas for additional 
parameters:
  - Display :
    - Font size (for display)
    - Do not historize commands dragged and dropped from history (checkbox)
    - Tag erroneous commands (checkbox)(indicated for a future version)
    - Mask comments (chekbox)
    - List one instruction per line (keeping "," and ";" separators. 
removing ".." )(checkbox)
    - Find: Display only matching lines (checkbox)
  - Printing:
    - Font size
    - Line numbering (checkbox)
    - # of columns
  - Adding a Tab to the config() interface (when this one will be 
revisited :-)
   presenting this pannel would be useful, to get it in a general 
setting board.
 
  * Among the *evolution for future versions*: i am already voting for
   the /Warnings for statements/  and as a second choice for
   /Syntactic colors/ listed items.


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