[Suggestions for improvement] Build/Terminal tool window

[ahkevin]

1. Build and Terminal tool window can be combined into one.
2. Add basic features such as auto-complete and words highlight，This makes it easy to use system commands, git, etc

thanks

[patrickkox]

You can set a different build shell by following the instructions it provides when you build for the first time

 

SlickEdit Pro build shell version 1.0

 This shell works reliably in the build or terminal window.

 To configure a different shell, set the macro variable 'def_build_shell' to the.

 shell you want (/bin/tcsh -i,/bin/csh -i,/bin/ksh -i, etc.). Use the menu item

 Macro>Set Macro Variable to set the macro variable.

 Known incompatibilities

 bash       (Ubuntu) Stop process does not work.

 dash       (Ubuntu) Hangs and does not work at all

Unfortunately this doesn't seem to work well with the zsh shell (zsh is the default shell of the newer versions of macOS),

I just checked again, and it seems to work better compared to the last time I've tried this, but the auto-complete works fine.

I've also got some plugins installed through "Oh-My-zsh" like "zsh-autosuggestions" and "zsh-syntax-highlighting", these are very helpfull plugins and there are also some git plugins that you might like.

These plugins don't seem to work when the zsh shell is used by slickedit though.

So, bottom line:

I would support this request to combine the build and terminal windows and suggest zsh with some plugins as alternative for the default shell that the build window uses now.

[ahkevin]

Hi patrickkox,
Thank you for your prompt reply.

But I use slickedit 2020 pro on windows 7, and I used shell is cmder(https://cmder.net/) .

Has any solution? 

[Clark]

Combining the Build and Terminal tool window is an interesting idea. Maybe the first tab would be the Build tab and the rest would be Terminal Tabs. This has the advantage of requiring less key bindings/commands to activate both of them. Although, Ctrl+Tab does not switch tabs within a tool window tab control. There would still be different commands to activate different Tabs (i.e. activate-terminal). The disadvantage is that you wouldn't be able to Dock them separately like you can now. Not sure how important this is.

Changing the shell to affect the build/terminal window typing experience/auto completion won't work. SlickEdit takes over the typing experience/auto completion and implements it internally  independent from the shell (even if it's SlickEdit's build shell). Unfortunately, there is no way to change this. That means SlickEdit can't leverage existing shell auto-completion.

To be clear, "vs" implements the typing experience/auto completion. When a command is sent (usually Enter or newline after line), the shell gets the command, parses it, and runs it.

SlickEdit's (vs) shell typing experience could be improved. I'd like better file completion for "tar", "jar", etc.  That way we get smarter completion (only list supported file extensions or directories). Something like this could be configurable. zsh also seems to suggest option arguments. Something like that could be configurable too. As for the color coding, I think that could be added but SlickEdit's current directory sometimes gets out-of-sync with the build or terminal window. That would mean that path searching for existing commands could be incorrect and colored incorrectly.

[ahkevin]

I'd like vs shell to be improved rather than to invoke system shell,  Look forward to this improvement.

There is a other issue in build/terminal that can type or delete anywhere in the result, This will disrupt command result.
When I press the Enter key, I want the cursor to automatically turn to the last input prompt like other shell(bash etc.) instead of inserting a enter at the current position.

[Clark]

There is a other issue in build/terminal that can type or delete anywhere in the result, This will disrupt command result.
When I press the Enter key, I want the cursor to automatically turn to the last input prompt like other shell(bash etc.) instead of inserting a enter at the current position.

When I press Enter in the middle of some build shell command line, it inserts an enter/newline at the end of the line and not at the cursor position. Try a default config. I didn't think any emulation does what you describe either. Maybe I'm not understanding what you are explaining.

[LBCEi]

If you put your cursor anywhere in the build window other than on the 'command line' (in some of the output from a build) and hit enter it will add a carriage return to the displayed output.  It doesn't seem like it should do that. 

I entered the following commands in the build window:
cd \
dir

Before:

Code: [Select]

10/27/2020  03:08 PM    <DIR>          Windows
08/14/2020  01:00 PM    <DIR>          Windows10Upgrade
02/28/2017  11:07 AM             5,778 XML List ID.txt
              30 File(s)      7,504,163 bytes
              28 Dir(s)  335,200,075,776 bytes free

C:\>
After placing my cursor in front of the second <DIR> and hitting enter:

Code: [Select]

10/27/2020  03:08 PM    <DIR>          Windows
08/14/2020  01:00 PM   
<DIR>          Windows10Upgrade
02/28/2017  11:07 AM             5,778 XML List ID.txt
              30 File(s)      7,504,163 bytes
              28 Dir(s)  335,200,075,776 bytes free

C:\>


[Clark]

I totally wasn't understanding what you meant. in v25 (new feature), you can usually press undo to undo that. I guess I've just gotten used to pressing Ctrl+End and I like the fact that SlickEdit lets you do normal editing when you are not entering a command. That data is not supposed to be read-only.

[LBCEi]

I've always wished that the Build window acted like a normal terminal window.  If I click on a bash console window (for example) to give it focus, I don't have to hit Ctrl-End before I can start typing commands.  I can understand the desire to be able to scroll through the output and select and, possibly, copy text.  I can't imagine a scenario where I would want to actually edit the output text directly in the build window.  I can't count how many times I've clicked on the Build window to give it focus and started typing my command into the middle of the output text.  Frustrating.

[hs2]

Edit capabilities and completion in the Build window are incredibly useful and I happily undo > CTRL-END in case I started typing somewhere by mistake.
I afraid to additionally support pure terminal behavior including scroll back on key press (perhaps also on got focus) one more option is needed to deal with both use cases.

[ahkevin]

I totally wasn't understanding what you meant. in v25 (new feature), you can usually press undo to undo that. I guess I've just gotten used to pressing Ctrl+End and I like the fact that SlickEdit lets you do normal editing when you are not entering a command. That data is not supposed to be read-only.

Hi Clark,
LBCEi explained what I wanted to say.

I think the build window is either the output of the build or the result of the command execution. I could not think of any scenarios in which the output result needs to be edited in the Build window. Maybe I haven't used it yet.

[patrickkox]

I can't count how many times I've clicked on the Build window to give it focus and started typing my command into the middle of the output text.  Frustrating.

Now that you mention it, same here.
I sometimes also forget to give the build window focus (commandline programs), so I enter my input in the source code instead. I guess I expect it to automatically jump to the build window when I hit Ctrl+F5

[Clark]

Everyone is different on this one. I don't have to click on the Build window because I've configured the .process buffer to come up as an Edit window. I don't use the Build tool window.  I activate the .process buffer all the time, execute commands, and make edits. My most common edit is to remove lines of output to find what I'm looking for (unlist-search). I also manually clear the process buffer which is not very efficient since there is now a hot key for this (new in v25 -- I'll have to retrain myself).