Code tips, kinda like Jelly Fish

[Nathan Durland]

At work, we have a pretty large library of .INC files.  With JellyFish, we used the CodeTip builder so that the editor would pop up reminders about what order the function wants things in.  Such a function would be useful in FireFly.

For now, I cheat and tag it at the end of an existing file in the .\Keywords folder, but they get clobbered (as expected) when FF is updated.

[Paul Squires]

I will implement a file called "codetips_user.txt" where people can copy their own codetips and they won't get copied over on updates.

[Paul Squires]

Okay, this has now been implemented.

The fix will be in v3.04.

[Rolf Brandt]

This is certainly a useful feature. But couldn't this be done also in the Functions Library by setting the Prototype flag?

What I would love to see is the way VB5/6 handled things. If one creates a new sub or function in VB the code editor would reflect that right away and bring up tooltips for the parameters of the function. I would imagine this could be done as follows:

-  When opening a project FF3 scans all files for subs and functions and keeps it in memory.
-  Whenever a line of code is written that starts with the keyword Sub or Function, or any
   change is made in such a code line FF3 adds it to the list.

That might greatly enhance the comfort of the editor and code tips would be specific to the project.

Rolf

[Nathan Durland]

This is certainly a useful feature. But couldn't this be done also in the Functions Library by setting the Prototype flag?

I suppose that the Functions Library would work, but not always.  For example, we use the (excellent) SQL_Tools library.  We'd have to break the .INC file into separate discreet files in the Functions Lib to get the same effect. 

The idea of behaving like VB5/6, is intriguing as long as there's not a significant performance hit.  I'm thinking of things like the Win32 library -- headers for thousands of functions just for that in memory at one time.

[Paul Squires]

I have on my to-do list automatic codetip generation for subs/functions that are entered into the code editor as you are coding. The parsing routines are already present in FF3 because they are used for other purposes. All that would be needed is to add the found subs/functions to the codetip list.

[Rolf Brandt]

That sounds great, Paul. I'm loving FF3 more and more. It was worth waiting for it.

Rolf