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autoIndent preference (was: Preference settings for 5.3 release)

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Chris Muller-3

autoIndent preference (was: Preference settings for 5.3 release)

(can o' worms opened in other thread, these can get detailed, how about one thread per preference?)

TL;DR;

The default setting for autoIndent should not be based on our own personal preference, but who we're targeting the release image for:

users : default autoIndent should be false

developers : default autoIndent should be true

Jakob wrote:

I think autoIndent is really practical when writing code in blocks or cascades, or otherwise indented text. Why do you feel that it should it be off by default?

Hi Jakob, I keep it off in my images. Often I'll want to type code from a "stream of consciousness" of something in my mind. I prefer the luxury of simply letting the code fly out my fingers as fast as they can type, ignoring formatting until I get my entire thought typed. At that point, if I'm unsure about the code, I might leave it there ugly on purpose as indication of unfinished code. Otherwise, if I know it's good, I simply hit the pretty-print button, and all of the indenting is done at once without having expended a single thought or keystroke about it.

autoIndent tries to commingle the concerns of coding with formatting, which I find distracting for my above style. However, I know it's a feature that's caught on in other editors, so possibly something developers from outside might expect..

Users, OTOH, might prefer standard text-editor behavior, [Return] is to col:1.

Best,

Chris

timrowledge

Re: autoIndent preference (was: Preference settings for 5.3 release)

> On 2019-12-23, at 7:44 PM, Chris Muller <[hidden email]> wrote:
>
> (can o' worms opened in other thread, these can get detailed, how about one thread per preference?)
>
> TL;DR;
>
> The default setting for autoIndent should not be based on our own personal preference, but who we're targeting the release image for:
>
> users : default autoIndent should be false
> developers : default autoIndent should be true

Currently we (very regrettably) do not do a decent job of distinguishing between text editing and code editing. Which I contend are very much not the same thing.

If I'm remembering right (given this is 3+ decades old memory) we used to have code editor as a subclass of text editor and the menus were quite different. Somewhere in the early days of Squeak this got all smooshed into one state. Bad idea.

tim
--
tim Rowledge; [hidden email]; http://www.rowledge.org/tim
Strange OpCodes: EFB: Emulate Five-volt Battery mode

Jakob Reschke

Re: autoIndent preference (was: Preference settings for 5.3 release)

I also enjoy auto indentation in text (non-code) workspaces. Sometimes I want to type multiple indented lines and then it comes in handy. Using the proper TextAttribute for indentation is too cumbersome for me. Maybe this should be considered as a separate UX issue. Hence I use the tabs.

If I remember correctly both autoIndent and autoEnclose can already be set from the initial start-up wizard. So I don't really care about the default state of either switch.