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I'm annoyed because...

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Dale Henrichs-3

I'm annoyed because...

when I make certain syntax errors while editting a method the syntax
highlighting goes all white on me ... I seem to recall that in the past
the syntax highlighter would start showing red at the point of the
syntax error ... and in this case the whole method is white and I have
to guess where my error was --- attached a png --- I used to be able to
depend upon the syntax highlighter to not only catch the syntax error
(turning white indicates that the highlighter knows I made a booboo) but
show me the point at which things stopped making sense ... ummatched
brackets is pretty common and I would recognize that the brackets were
mis-matched in the past ... now the whole thing goes white and I have to
work much harder ...

Dale

Screen Shot 2016-08-07 at 4.53.10 PM.png (43K) Download Attachment

Dale Henrichs-3

Re: I'm annoyed because...

On 8/7/16 4:57 PM, Dale Henrichs wrote:

> when I make certain syntax errors while editting a method the syntax
> highlighting goes all white on me ... I seem to recall that in the
> past the syntax highlighter would start showing red at the point of
> the syntax error ... and in this case the whole method is white and I
> have to guess where my error was --- attached a png --- I used to be
> able to depend upon the syntax highlighter to not only catch the
> syntax error (turning white indicates that the highlighter knows I
> made a booboo) but show me the point at which things stopped making
> sense ... ummatched brackets is pretty common and I would recognize
> that the brackets were mis-matched in the past ... now the whole thing
> goes white and I have to work much harder ...
>
> Dale

Okay just adding a square bracket causes the syntax highlighter to

surrender (png 1) and it used to ignore the bracket errors so I guess I
see the point, but turning all white is not really helping me ... I
think I'm annoyed because my habit was not to place a bracket at the
point in the code where I want the block to start, then type in the body
of the block and then at some point later figure out where the closing
block should go ... now it appears that you **force** me to figure out
where the closing bracket is going to go after you've turned the syntax
highlighting off and before I can finish my thoughts ... I was not and
am not annoyed by getting an unbalanced bracket error, but turning off
syntax highlighting when I type the first bracket *is* annoying ...

Dale

Screen Shot 2016-08-07 at 5.03.02 PM.png (44K) Download Attachment

Screen Shot 2016-08-07 at 5.03.41 PM.png (32K) Download Attachment

Dale Henrichs-3

Re: I'm annoyed because...

In reply to this post by Dale Henrichs-3

Looks like a leading " turns off highlighting as well ... and the
highlighting is turned off in the expression(s) *BEFORE* the syntax
error which is not very useful ... I may not notice that the syntax
highlighting has turned off until I have typed quite a few a characters
and with the whole block white I cannot find the starting point of the
error ... was it the leading " or an accidental [ ... I find myself
having to parse Smalltalk code again ... something I haven't had to do
for years (maybe even decades) :)

Dale

On 8/7/16 4:57 PM, Dale Henrichs wrote:

Screen Shot 2016-08-07 at 5.15.10 PM.png (56K) Download Attachment

Tudor Girba-2

Re: I'm annoyed because...

Hi Dale,

Thanks for the time to report!

Indeed, it is a known problem.

Here is the explanation, which is not an argumentation of why this is a good behavior.

Before, syntax highlighting had its own mechanism, including parser and internal representation. In Pharo 5, we decided to unify the mechanisms that deal with code manipulation and make them use RB. The problem is that, indeed for some cases of unclosed brackets, RB does not know what happens. The thing is that it was worse a couple of months before the Pharo 5 release and then a solution could be found that improved the situation.

Again, this is not an argumentation of why the highlighting is better now because from a user point of view it is not. But, from an infrastructure point of view, with all the work that Marcus is doing, it is better. So, please take this as an argumentation why I would like to see if pushing a bit more we maybe manage to fix the final problems.

Cheers,
Doru

> On Aug 8, 2016, at 2:19 AM, Dale Henrichs <[hidden email]> wrote:
>
> Looks like a leading " turns off highlighting as well ... and the highlighting is turned off in the expression(s) *BEFORE* the syntax error which is not very useful ... I may not notice that the syntax highlighting has turned off until I have typed quite a few a characters and with the whole block white I cannot find the starting point of the error ... was it the leading " or an accidental [ ... I find myself having to parse Smalltalk code again ... something I haven't had to do for years (maybe even decades) :)
>
> Dale
>
> On 8/7/16 4:57 PM, Dale Henrichs wrote:
>> when I make certain syntax errors while editting a method the syntax highlighting goes all white on me ... I seem to recall that in the past the syntax highlighter would start showing red at the point of the syntax error ... and in this case the whole method is white and I have to guess where my error was --- attached a png --- I used to be able to depend upon the syntax highlighter to not only catch the syntax error (turning white indicates that the highlighter knows I made a booboo) but show me the point at which things stopped making sense ... ummatched brackets is pretty common and I would recognize that the brackets were mis-matched in the past ... now the whole thing goes white and I have to work much harder ...
>>
>> Dale
>>
>>
>
> <Screen Shot 2016-08-07 at 5.15.10 PM.png>

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