Re: Accessing function definitions
Re: Accessing function definitions
- Subject: Re: Accessing function definitions
- From: Laurence Harris <email@hidden>
- Date: Thu, 26 Oct 2006 14:23:06 -0400
On Oct 26, 2006, at 1:54 PM, Shawn Erickson wrote:
On 10/26/06, Steve Mills <email@hidden> wrote:
Why not just put all the known definitions for the clicked symbol
into the menu no matter how many there are? Sure would make coding a
lot more fun, and faster.
Not for me... having 100s of items in that menu would drop its
usefulness for me.
Why? First, I don't think scrolling through a menu is any worse than
(and in fact I prefer it to) switching to a different interface or
window and needing to type. I may even want to see my choices before
deciding which one I want to view. For example, I might have a class
that's a subclass of a subclass of another class, and I can't
remember which of those have overridden a function.
In any case, I think we would all agree that the cutoff for the
number of functions in the menu should be more than 20. I realize
that some people would find hundreds a bit unmanageable, but I don't
know anyone who would be challenged by 30 or 50, say, and the higher
that cutoff the fewer times you'd have to switch to a backup
mechanism. Ideally I'd like to be able to set that cutoff. If you
want 20 (or 10) and I want 200, why can't we both have what we want?
I find it hard to believe that isn't just a constant that could be
specified by a preference.
The answer shouldn't be to throw more information
in our face to sift over but to get us to the information we want
quickly and via a sensible contiguous workflow.
What I would like to see is the auto completion popup or jump-to
symbol popup continue to do what it does now (show a limited set and
provide a more option) but have a way to add an additional filter
dimension to the mix, for example the class that I know provides the
symbol I am looking for.
In other words I start typing in the name of a symbol (or command
double click a symbol), have the symbol selector popup come up but
then I notice that a lot of symbols exist with that naming. I would
love to be able to hit a magic key combination that toggles the popup
to begin filtering the current set of symbols by class/framework as I
type out its name.
If I Command-double-click to show the menu (without continuing to
press the mouse button), the menu acts like a list. I can run the
cursor over it to highlight an item, type to select items, and use
the arrow keys to navigate it, all without having to switch to
another interface. I just tend to be more productive when I can use a
single approach to something like this instead of being able to use a
convenient mechanism part of the time and having to use another,
clumsier approach at other times. Even if the occasional menu with
300 items in it might be unwieldy, the consistency in my workflow
would offset that.
Larry
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