I am sure I saw a piece of BASIC+ code to help in cleaning up and reformatting old AREV code (to be reborn in OI) somewhere around here… But I cannot for the life of me find it now.

It was in the last SENL:

http://www.sprezzatura.com/senl/volume_3_issue_3.htm#dummies

Unfortunately it does not work as shown… it removes all indentation and leaves everything uppercase. (Which is how most of these *UGLY* programs are to begin with!)

I will work from this, but if someone has something better they would like to share…

Send me some samples and i will try my code management on it.

Currently i do not convert to multi-case - i convert names of variables and functions/subroutines to upper or lower case, but i will see if converting to multicase will work.

I assume you mean -

row=xlate(filename, fieldname, key, flag)

is to become

Row=Xlate(Filename, Fieldname, Key, Flag)

plynch49@hotmail.com

I don't recall if it will correct "old" code, but OpenInsight 7.0's System Editor will colorize, auto-case, and (possibly) auto-structure your logic as you enter it.

dbakke@srpcs.com

SRP Computer Solutions, Inc.

Sorry - try http://www.sprezzatura.com/senl/senl15.htm#_Toc447507980 which seems to work for us.

The Sprezzatura Group

World Leaders in all things RevSoft

Don,

Re 7.0 System Editor: Are all features decided? I'd love to have a say about some.

- Oystein -

No.Suggest away

The Sprezzatura Group

World Leaders in all things RevSoft

If the system editor is to include a source code updater, i would like to see -

For OI -

Choice of case, as mentioned here.

Conversion of early WRITE to WRITE … THEN END (et al)

Convert PERFORM and EXECUTE to OI equivalent.

Add dummy argument to calls which have no arguments

Replace INPUT and PRINT with OI equivalents

Change @ACCOUNT to @APPID - et al

Change dots to underscores in rev g and arev source

Translate MSG, POPUP and MENU system calls to OI equivalents.

And in general

Make all single line statements

Structure clearly

Color highlight at least literals, function and subroutine calls, and comments.

And the impossible

Replace GOTO with structure. 

Hey Peter,

Whoa! what a wish list!!!

Well along with the WRITE to WRITE … THEN END remember to also include the DELETE, WRITEV, and UNLOCK statements.

About the GOTO structure… not really impossible, maybe not 100% accurate. Although it would kinda tie in with the conditional statements a bit. Here is one hint… if the GOTO points to a previous line number then it could be replaced with a LOOP REPEAT.

Along those lines do not forget about the nested IF THEN statements that should be replaced with CASE statements.

I would rather see the problems fixed that are being reported about the "multiple cursors" (select lists), the ICONV and OCONV not acting like the "HELP" states they should do, and the INDEXING, RLIST, and REDUCE seem to have their problems too. I think I have forgotton some.

Sprezzatura,

First I hope it isn't set in stone once it's out. The old System Editor had (have) some irritating features and bugs we never could get changed. That was a bit frustrating.

Next I hope I don't have to give all my reply here and now. I'm in the middle of packing for a trip.

But just to bash some quick comments off my wrist:

Obviously we need an indent/outdent feature, like in the old System Editor. But there must also be a comment/outcomment feature.

When moving up and down with the arrow keys or with PgUp/PgDn the cursor should try to stay at the same column. I often move up and down like that to check structure and indentation. E.g, "how far does this 'end else' clause go". Suddenly there's a blank line with too few tabs in it and the cursor drops to the left, losing track of the indentation level.

The old System Editor has a limit of 20 (???) open rows. That is not enough.

I think it should be possible to delete a row without having to use a command line. It would also be nice to be able to delete more than one row at a time (rows with a range of keys, rows with keys that satisfy a regular expression, etc). But maybe we're talking about a different tool now.

Btw - it would be useful to be able to open more than one row at a time. (I often need to work in parallel on related functions, and such related functions often have names starting with the same string. E.g, I might have commuter functions Main_Data_Entry_Child_1, Main_Data_Entry_Child_2, Main_Data_Entry_Child_3, etc, for a set of child windows. It's tiresome to have to browse again and again for the same place in the list of SP names, especially when you can see them all together in the same place. Another example: I want to check the latest rows in a table with a sequential counter, e.g, keys 4711, 4712, 4713, …, 4717.)

The editor must know what the atoms of the code are. So doubleclicking on a function or variable name should select that name - no more and no less. E.g doubleclicking on the M in My_Var should select all of My_Var, not just My. E.g doubleclicking on the V in Var= Count should select Var and not Var=, even if there is no space between Var and =.

The same goes for navigating with the control key. When the control key is pressed while the user clicks left or right arrow, the cursor should move on atom at a time.

There must be good support in general for using the keyboard for navigation, selection, etc.

- Oystein -

PS. Back in approx ten days.

Sure guys, why don't we just write your software for you?

As anyone who has written an editor can tell you, there is a lot of work to it.

We have a great list of features we're planning to put in. When we think we have enough, or can't make it in time for release, we'll let you know.

Thanks for the suggestions.

Mike

Two things I really miss from the ARev editor:

1) Ctrl-E. Ie, the ability to 'zoom in' on a dynamic array.

2) Open records from a list. I would commonly do something like

"SELECT SYSPROCS WITH RECORD '…'" and then bring those up as a browse list in the editor.

FWIW - M@

And add READPREV, and JUST IN CASE, and BITMORE operands

Agree in spades. particularly when there are "system delimiters. The ability to zoom down to the next delimiter level was a grand way to fix things that had gone wrong. There's no way to replicate this in OI at all. Getting the Editor to recognize an active select list ought not to be too difficult either.

Don M.

I just repaired the first one and it worked fine. I wasn't trying to do any rocket science, just fix them so they didn't make my eyes hurt.

Thanks for all the comments.

If you'd care to share the fixes we'll ensure that John's original article is repaired so nobody else faces the same issues.

Thanks!

The Sprezzatura Group

World Leaders in all things RevSoft

The Home key should bring you to the beginning of the line. But the beginning of the line is two different things - the very start of the line, or the first non-whitespace character. Sometimes you want one, sometimes the other. (At least I do.) So let the first Home e.g bring you to the very start, and make additional Home keystrokes toggle between the two positions. (I've seen this feature in the OpenScript editor of Asymetrix/Click2Learn's ToolBook.)

- Oystein -

In MS Word it is possible to select a vertical block of text, i.e, a rectangle anywhere in the text. The rectangle doesn't have to start at the left margin and end at the right. To do a vertical block selection hold down Alt, and then drag over the text. Be sure to press Alt before clicking the mouse button and not after. (Btw - the feature doesn't work within a table cell.) The block can then be cut/copied and pasted.

This functionality can be very useful in a program editor. Code and data often exhibit grid-like patterns. I sometimes bring over chunks of code and data from the System Editor to Word to exploit the latter's capability for doing such block changes. (For the feature to work properly I use a non-proportional font, like New Courier.)

Can we have this functionality in the 7.0 System Editor? It can't be too difficult to implement.

Or is it only me who finds such a feature useful?

- Oystein -

I'd like to see better Search/Replace functionality in the new System Editor.

First I'd like to have some wildcard/regular expression kind of features - at list some simple ones.

E.g, I'd like to be able to search and replace tabs and line breaks (cf Word's ^t and ^p). (Tabs are possible today, but a bit kludgy to do.)

E.g, I'd like to have a wildcard * that matches any substring within a line. One very simple example: You need to find all places where property "TEXT" is set. There are not many occurrences, but each of the two strings Set_Property and "TEXT" occur very many times. Being able to search for Set_Property*"TEXT" would solve the problem. E.g, I'd like to have something that matches any sequence of white space characters (spaces and tabs). E.g, I'd like a wildcard that matches either a single or double quote. Example: In your code you might have used both "TEXT" and 'TEXT' to specify property TEXT. Then I'd like Search And Replace to work confined to the current selection. - Oystein - </QUOTE> —- === At 23 JUL 2003 07:48AM Oystein Reigem wrote: === <QUOTE>There are many things in the current System Editor that don't work too well. I hope it's not relevant to mention them all. I assume the new System Editor isn't made from the old one. Or? - Oystein - </QUOTE> —- === At 23 JUL 2003 07:54AM Oystein Reigem wrote: === <QUOTE>Assume some text is selected (shown here as underlined): blah blah the selected text blah blah Then think of what should happen if you press the left arrow key. In the current editor the caret/cursor always moves one character left from its last position. If it ends up near the start or the end of the selection depends on which direction the selection was made. The place it positions itself is either one place to the left of where the selection started, or one place to the left of where it ended: blah blah| the selected text blah blah blah blah the selected tex|t blah blah In my opinion the caret should go to the start of the selection, i.e, place itself exactly before the first character that was selected: blah blah |the selected text blah blah It seems the old System Editor agrees with how the standard edit box works in this matter, presumably because it uses one. But I find the way MS Word works much more useful, and more intuitive. Also a browser text box (at least Internet Explorer's text box) is like Word in this matter. And please keep quiet all you Word haters out there. Similar for the right arrow key. - Oystein - </QUOTE> —- === At 23 JUL 2003 07:59AM Oystein Reigem wrote: === <QUOTE>Can we have a better Undo feature? The current one only goes one step back. Can we have more steps? Also in the current editor the changes that are covered by the step might be different from other editors and different from what one expects. Sometimes more changes are undone then expected - sometimes less. I can glimpse a system behind it, but it's not intuitive what happens. - Oystein - </QUOTE> —- === At 23 JUL 2003 09:09AM Peter Lynch wrote: === <QUOTE> Oystein, That reminds me of another feature. The feature you mention is in IBM's ISPF editor. Another related feature was the ability to hide or show blocks of code. When working on a large program, it is of great benefit because you can hide all but the relevant lines. Note that this feature worked by allowing multiple blocks of hidden code, not just one. And if you want to look at a very function-rich editor, perhaps somebody will have experience of the NED editor in the Pick world. Regards, Peter </QUOTE> —- === At 23 JUL 2003 09:15AM Oystein Reigem wrote: === <QUOTE>Peter, Another related feature was the ability to hide or show blocks of code. When working on a large program, it is of great benefit because you can hide all but the relevant lines. Interesting. Is it the programmer who decides what the blocks are, or are the blocks the if/else/while/etc blocks of a structured program? - Oystein - </QUOTE> —- === At 23 JUL 2003 09:20AM Peter Lynch wrote: === <QUOTE>"Is it the programmer who decides what the blocks are, or are the blocks the if/else/while/etc blocks of a structured program? - Oystein -" The blocks are marked dynamically by the programmer. I think i used to say something like - blank from line 23 to 56 blank from line 247 to 456 in whatever syntax was necessary and the lines would disappear and be replaced by a marker line (i think - it was before 1985. </QUOTE> —- === At 23 JUL 2003 09:27AM The Sprezzatura Group wrote: === <QUOTE>This was actually something we kept meaning to do in AREV to add to the article in SENL on softkeys to add jumping to subroutines/called routines (http://www.sprezzatura.com/senl/senl12.htm#_Toc442604687). We'd envisage a side panel in the editor with the expanded code but doubleclicking on the subroutine header would expand/collapse showing a +/- accordingly. Or even in the main body of the editor, the key being the doubleclick on the line collapses/expands to the corresponding end of indent below. The Sprezzatura Group World Leaders in all things RevSoft </QUOTE> —- === At 23 JUL 2003 09:34AM Oystein Reigem wrote: === <QUOTE>Often when I do systematic changes in my programs I find myself pasting in the same pieces of code (strings or sets of program lines) many places in the program text. And not seldom I need two or more different chuncks of code each place. Unfortunately the clipboard can only carry one item at a time. The later versions of the MS Office products have a multi-item clipboard (sorry for mentioning MS products again). Could we have something similar in the new System Editor? - Oystein - </QUOTE> —- === At 23 JUL 2003 09:41AM Oystein Reigem wrote: === <QUOTE>Sprezzatura, …softkeys to add jumping to subroutines/called routines… What about the opposite relation? Something that helps you find the SPs that call the current SP. E.g to use when you have to change the parameters of a function. Then you need to edit all the places that call that function. It might not be something that jumps - just something that presents you with a list of calling SPs. Perhaps even recursively, because changes often propagate. - Oystein - </QUOTE> —- === At 23 JUL 2003 09:45AM The Sprezzatura Group wrote: === <QUOTE>Oy Theoretically it's called the Repository - highlight entity in the application manager, Entity menu, relationships. The Sprezzatura Group World Leaders in all things RevSoft </QUOTE> —- === At 23 JUL 2003 10:14AM Oystein Reigem wrote: === <QUOTE>Sprezzatura, One entity at a time? Or can one do it wholesale? - Oystein - </QUOTE> —- === At 23 JUL 2003 10:16AM Carl Pates wrote: === <QUOTE>Oystein, Not being funny, but if you really want to use Word as an editor you could use XRev.DLL and some macro programming… Carl </QUOTE> —- === At 23 JUL 2003 10:40AM Oystein Reigem wrote: === <QUOTE>Sprezzatura, Sorry. Thought you gave the instructions for turning the feature on. But of course it's already there. Never used it. Thanks. Come to think of it: Might be useful with a feature for getting System Editor to open all the related (used) entities. - Oystein - </QUOTE> —- === At 23 JUL 2003 10:44AM Oystein Reigem wrote: === <QUOTE>Who's Carl?, Not being funny, but if you really want to use Word as an editor… No, I'd hate to do all the necessary macro programming. Intendation. Color coding (which we are promised in 7.0 System Editor). Etc. Etc. - Oystein - </QUOTE> —- === At 23 JUL 2003 10:58AM The Sprezzatura Group wrote: === <QUOTE>There is no Carl - There is only Zool… The Sprezzatura Group World leaders in all things RevSoft </QUOTE> —- === At 23 JUL 2003 11:17AM Oystein Reigem wrote: === <QUOTE>Zool? ? - Oy - </QUOTE> —- === At 24 JUL 2003 04:22AM The Sprezzatura Group wrote: === <QUOTE>Nope - a little more like this … http://www.matthewbarr.co.uk/sounds/dana_zool.wav The Sprezzatura Group World Leaders in all things RevSoft </QUOTE> —- === At 29 AUG 2003 04:20AM Oystein Reigem wrote: === <QUOTE>(Thread rising from the dead…) Revelation, In another posting in this thread Matthew Crozier would like to see System Editor able to open records from a list. But there is something simpler that also would be a useful improvement: having Open dialogs that allow multiple selects. If this wish comes too late for 7.0, please consider it for some 7.x. - Oystein - </QUOTE> —- === At 29 AUG 2003 09:33AM Gerald Lovel wrote: === <QUOTE>Oystein, I have written QBF from scratch, fixed popup, built an effective menu handler with access security a la AREV. I'm working on filters, cursors, and saved lists. Writing a functional editor which can browse lists or cursors is on my agenda, but I'm praying Mike actually gets to this one before I have to. Transparency in development plans would be helpful and appreciated. (What did the previous regime at Revelation Software DO for ten years?) Gerald </QUOTE> —- === At 29 AUG 2003 09:59AM Donald Bakke wrote: === <QUOTE>Gerald, What did the previous regime at Revelation Software DO for ten years? I was tempted to say, "Virtually nada", but I don't want to be overly critical. That is, comparing OI 1.x/2.x to OI 3.7.x there are some significant changes. Not 10 years worth of course, but perhaps 3 or 4. Now using that scale, the new regime has done about 20 years of work in only three literal years. dbakke@srpcs.com SRP Computer Solutions, Inc. </QUOTE> —- === At 29 AUG 2003 12:05PM Don Miller - C3 Inc. wrote: === <QUOTE>Well, there were 2 regimes .. the technical and the rest (mostly marketing). Cam Purdy, Gene Gleyzer (sp) and others were working pretty hard. There was just too much on their plate (JOI/JREV, WEB Stuff, etc.) and not enough resources to get it done. At one point there were only 4 people doing all the work and they were endlessly diverted. There was also a big lack of direction and discipline in accomplishing projects. The administration, marketing and support were (to put it politely) just awful .. a big Hoover job. Top management tended to have an "Us" vs. "Them" mentality that didn't help much either. But that's all water over the dam or under the bridge. There's a very different climate there that's very results oriented. The endless BS from the old days has gone the way of the Dodo. Just my .02. Don M. </QUOTE> View this thread on the forum...