A suggestion/request for IDEs

[John Salerno]

I apologize for the slightly off-topic nature, but I thought I'd just
throw this out there for anyone working on text editors or IDEs with
auto-completion.

I think it should be a feature, when an item is selected for
auto-completion in a drop-down box, that pressing the spacebar (in
addition to tab or enter) will automatically finish the word and add a
space. This is how Microsoft's new IDEs for .NET work, and I found it
very helpful to be able to just press space as normal and keep typing. I
know it sounds minor, but I find it to be a time saver instead of having
to press tab or enter, and then also the spacebar.

Thanks.

[richard.charts]

John Salerno wrote:

I apologize for the slightly off-topic nature, but I thought I'd just
throw this out there for anyone working on text editors or IDEs with
auto-completion.

I think it should be a feature, when an item is selected for
auto-completion in a drop-down box, that pressing the spacebar (in
addition to tab or enter) will automatically finish the word and add a
space. This is how Microsoft's new IDEs for .NET work, and I found it
very helpful to be able to just press space as normal and keep typing. I
know it sounds minor, but I find it to be a time saver instead of having
to press tab or enter, and then also the spacebar.

Thanks.

See I have to disagree with you. I always hated that spacebar would
complete. I found it more natural that space would simply enter a
space and you could keep typing. I found it slowed my down more having
to change items that would autocomplete when I didn't want them to.
Of course, it's a matter of preference and comfort.

[Tim Chase]

John Salerno wrote:

I apologize for the slightly off-topic nature, but I thought I'd just
throw this out there for anyone working on text editors or IDEs with
auto-completion.

Well, Vim7's autocompletion already allows this. Earlier
versions of vim also allowed similar behavior, but (AFAIK) didn't
have a nice way to cancel the suggestion or to accept the
suggestion without an additional character (or leaving insert
mode). In Vim7, you can abort your current ^P/^N completion with
^E (to regain just what you typed, minus the current
completion/suggestion) or you can accept it with ^Y (which won't
add an extra character), or you can just continue typing to
accept the completion, and then add the character you typed (such
as space, period, etc).

Other editors/IDEs may have similar functionality.. .

-tkc

[Stephen Eilert]

Tim Chase wrote:

John Salerno wrote:

I apologize for the slightly off-topic nature, but I thought I'd just
throw this out there for anyone working on text editors or IDEs with
auto-completion.

Well, Vim7's autocompletion already allows this. Earlier
versions of vim also allowed similar behavior, but (AFAIK) didn't
have a nice way to cancel the suggestion or to accept the
suggestion without an additional character (or leaving insert
mode). In Vim7, you can abort your current ^P/^N completion with
^E (to regain just what you typed, minus the current
completion/suggestion) or you can accept it with ^Y (which won't
add an extra character), or you can just continue typing to
accept the completion, and then add the character you typed (such
as space, period, etc).

Other editors/IDEs may have similar functionality.. .

-tkc

The best IDE's can do is a minor form of autocomplete, considering the
dynamic nature of Python programs.
Stephen

[Harold Trammel]

John Salerno wrote:

I apologize for the slightly off-topic nature, but I thought I'd just
throw this out there for anyone working on text editors or IDEs with
auto-completion.

I think it should be a feature, when an item is selected for
auto-completion in a drop-down box, that pressing the spacebar (in
addition to tab or enter) will automatically finish the word and add a
space. This is how Microsoft's new IDEs for .NET work, and I found it
very helpful to be able to just press space as normal and keep typing. I
know it sounds minor, but I find it to be a time saver instead of having
to press tab or enter, and then also the spacebar.

Thanks.

I use Eclipse with PyDev and PyDev extensions. SlickEdit (awesome
editor) has auto-completion as well.