Go TextPad go! Yes this is the best text editor ever, I feel poor and less powerful without it, even if I can use other editors with no problem.
Let me use this post for a little suggestion I'd love in future versions of this editor, who knows the author could been reading this thread :)
(maybe this should go in the coding snacks section...)
Modern editors have code-folding; but TextPad should introduce... the text-folding(TM)!
Here it is:
First, "folding comments" must be defined: e.g. using "@@@" as the first chars of a comment line (after the comment chars for code, see example below), makes the line the "fold begin" command for TextPad, with the following text being the "label" for the folded section; the "fold end" can be the subsequent comment line starting with "@@@". TextPad automatically makes the plus and minus signs to open/close sections, and adds a control char (e.g. "c") after the end section comment to save the information of section fold open/closed. The control char can also be added manually. Ok, that's twisted, let's see an example: let's say we're writing a PHP script, so the comments are "#" or "//". If we write:
1. echo "text-folding";
2.
3. # @@@ Three echoes of the same string here
4. echo "text-folding";
5. echo "text-folding";
6. echo "text-folding";
7. # @@@
8.
9. # Two echoes of the same string
10. echo "text-folding";
11. echo "text-folding";
TextPad will automatically add a little "-" sign on the left of line 3, and if we click on it then lines 4, 5, 6, 7 "collapse" in line 3, which is rendered in some different way and says
Three echoes of the same string here. When the section is collapsed, TextPad automatically adds the "c" character after the "@@@" in line 7, which by the way will never be visible: so, when saving the file, closing TextPad and reopening it, the section will be rendered as collapsed (because TextPad finds "@@@c" instead of "@@@").
Of course, manually writing "@@@c" as section folding end marker, will tell TextPad to collapse it (without having to come back on the section folding begin marker and clicking the "-" sign to collapse the section, we TextPad users love very fast-action ;)
Reversely, when we expand a collapsed section, TextPad deletes the "c" char in the end marker, in order to store the information that "the user wants this section not collapsed when re-opening the file".
So, the code above will be rendered as:
1. echo "text-folding";
2.
3+ [Three echoes of the same string here]
8.
9. # Two echoes of the same string
10. echo "text-folding";
11. echo "text-folding";
Indenting folding comments could be interpreted by TextPad as inner levels of folding. E.g.:
# @@@ My favourite movies:
# @@@ movie 1:
# @@@ author: name1 surname1
# @@@ actors: ...
# @@@
# @@@ movie 2:
# @@@ author: name2 surname2
# @@@ actors: ...
# @@@
# @@@
# @@@ My favourite OAVs:
# @@@ movie 1:
# @@@ author: name1 surname1
# @@@ animators: ...
# @@@
# @@@ movie 2:
# @@@ author: name2 surname2
# @@@ animators: ...
# @@@
# @@@
Ok, hope the TextPad author takes inspiration from this request, I dream of it from my early days of using a text editor :)
