[Bluej-discuss] Moe Editor: Indentation & Block Actions

[mpp8 at kent.ac.uk]

> On 30 Dec 2007, at 14:54, <mpp8 at kent.ac.uk> wrote:
> 
> IndentAction, if I remember correctly, is not used for the 
> "Indent  
> More" block-action, but for "indent", which is bound to the TAB key.
> 
> "indent" does two things: If the current caret position is 
> before the  
> indent of the line above, it indents to the same level as the 
> line  
> above. If the indent is already at that level or beyond, it 
> indents to  
> the next TAB stop.
> 


Ah, that does make more sense now I look at it knowing it's bound to the TAB key.


> 
> > Secondly, when performing a block action, the code 
> specifically  
> > selects the entirety of all the lines included in the action. 
> The  
> > default action would be to keep the selection as it is before, 
> which  
> > would seem to me to be a more natural way of working - I find 
> it  
> > annoying when I change the indentation, then go to type 
> something in  
> > where the caret was before, only to find that that replaces 
> the  
> > whole line, as it has been entirely selected for no apparent 
> reason.  
> > Is there a reason for this?
> 
> No, not really. Only that block actions, such as "Indent More" 
> apply  
> to complete lines of every line of which at least a part is 
> included  
> in the current selection. But I think that could be done 
> without  
> actually selecting the whole line.
> 
> 
> > (This second point is the feature that I was looking in the 
> code to  
> > investigate - I had assumed that it selected all the lines 
> involved  
> > because it would be too difficult to keep track of where 
> the  
> > selection had been before, but I've now found out that it has 
> been  
> > specifically programmed to act like that.) I notice that other 
> IDEs/ 
> > editors also work in a similar ways (I last noticed it in 
> either  
> > Eclipse or TextWrangler; I can't remember) - is BlueJ made to 
> fit  
> > with a convention, or is there some other reason?
> 
> It was not done to fit the convention. It was just that I 
> thought that  
> the function applies to the complete line, and to make that 
> clear, the  
> complete line gets selected. (Block function always apply to 
> multiples  
> of lines.) But after what you said, I agree that it might be 
> better to  
> leave the selection as it was.


To leave the selection as it was, just the two following lines need to be removed from the blockAction method in MoeActions.java:

        textPane.setCaretPosition(text.getElement(firstLineIndex).getStartOffset());
        textPane.moveCaretPosition(text.getElement(lastLineIndex).getEndOffset());

Martin
 
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