Announcement: Intelli-Help coming for all SPIN/PASM editors
CounterRotatingProps
Posts: 1,132
(Hopefully) coming soon: The PropHelper - making Prop programming life much easier for almost all (windows only, sorry 
)
Basically it will be somewhat similar to·the Big Brother IDE's - when you type a SPIN/PASM keyword and hit the space bar, it rapidly pops up a highly detailed and fully customizable help window. Some degree of autocomplete as in traditional Intellisense may be possible in·a later version.· First release will be SPIN only, PASM to follow.
The prototype works well with the PropTool, Brad's BST, Notepad, Notepad++, and UltraEdit.
It should work with any editor.
I hope to·be posting the package and how-to here in a week or two. (Release pending copyright permission from Parallax - perhaps this is unnecessary, but I want to be sure it's ok.·I·believe there won't be an issue as all of this will be public domain - text will be directly excerpted·and edited from the WebPM.PDF file and·other Public·domain sources.·There·is no I.P., no binaries; it's·GNU public license, and anyone·can modify and extend what will be posted and linked to here.)
PropHelper will contain all SPIN commands, syntax and symbol help - plus any realistic suggestions you all may have.
This is intended as an on-going community project.
The picture shows a sample screen.·When I typed the word "byte" then space, the yellow window shows.
Your suggestions, comments, ideas, criticisms are welcome, please.
Sincerely,
Howard
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Post Edited (CounterRotatingProps) : 10/27/2009 9:04:24 PM GMT
)Basically it will be somewhat similar to·the Big Brother IDE's - when you type a SPIN/PASM keyword and hit the space bar, it rapidly pops up a highly detailed and fully customizable help window. Some degree of autocomplete as in traditional Intellisense may be possible in·a later version.· First release will be SPIN only, PASM to follow.
The prototype works well with the PropTool, Brad's BST, Notepad, Notepad++, and UltraEdit.
It should work with any editor.
I hope to·be posting the package and how-to here in a week or two. (Release pending copyright permission from Parallax - perhaps this is unnecessary, but I want to be sure it's ok.·I·believe there won't be an issue as all of this will be public domain - text will be directly excerpted·and edited from the WebPM.PDF file and·other Public·domain sources.·There·is no I.P., no binaries; it's·GNU public license, and anyone·can modify and extend what will be posted and linked to here.)
PropHelper will contain all SPIN commands, syntax and symbol help - plus any realistic suggestions you all may have.
This is intended as an on-going community project.
The picture shows a sample screen.·When I typed the word "byte" then space, the yellow window shows.
Your suggestions, comments, ideas, criticisms are welcome, please.
Sincerely,
Howard
__________________________________________________________________________
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Post Edited (CounterRotatingProps) : 10/27/2009 9:04:24 PM GMT
Comments
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Edit: Sounds like it could be expanded to included helps for commonly used objects... [noparse]:)[/noparse]
OBC
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New to the Propeller?
Visit the: The Propeller Pages @ Warranty Void.
Any ideas on what "common objects" you'd like help on? The door of possibilities is wide open.
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Just some ideas ...
Can you also set an "on-demand" mode to get cursor or mouse pointer context help with F1 or some other key?
Intellisis with .help is great for things I don't use all the time, but it can be annoying for common stuff.
Also having an object.method "preview mode" that could show a object method signature/comments and/or body would be cool.
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As for common objects, the obex provides an (almost) sorted list by download:
obex.parallax.com/objects/search/?o=7&ot=
> Can you also set an "on-demand" mode to get cursor or mouse pointer context help with F1 or some other key?
maybe - I think so, but will have to experiment with that a bit.
> Intellisis with .help is great for things I don't use all the time, but it can be annoying for common stuff.
Yes, see reply below to SRLM...
> Also having an object.method "preview mode" that could show a object method signature/comments and/or body would be cool.
Do you mean dynamic recognition of a user defined object, ala real intellisense? If so, this might not be possible with this approach ... have been thinking about that already. A static object that is previously documented would be OK however, so it's limited in abilities.
@SRLM -
RE: "help terseness" Cool idea and I agree completely with your line of thought... nothing more annoying than too much info!
This would be pretty easy to implement --- could cycle through levels of verbosity with one key... have to think about this one too some.
RE: OBEX - at this point, this is a bit more than I can work on... perhaps once I post the whole thing, others can hack on it too.
thanks for the feedback, OBC, Tim, Steve, SRLM ... looking forward to more replies.
- Howard
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I agree with SRLM, not too much info with additional to follow a key.
As for Objects...
Assume and object FDX. When you type "FDX." the intellisense should show all PUB calls of that object with the parameters (easy, just read through the object when it is declared for the PUB lines). If not declared, the intellisense should just state "undeclared".
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Links to other interesting threads:
· Home of the MultiBladeProps: TriBlade,·RamBlade,·SixBlade, website
· Single Board Computer:·3 Propeller ICs·and a·TriBladeProp board (ZiCog Z80 Emulator)
· Prop Tools under Development or Completed (Index)
· Emulators: CPUs Z80 etc; Micros Altair etc;· Terminals·VT100 etc; (Index) ZiCog (Z80) , MoCog (6809)
· Search the Propeller forums·(uses advanced Google search)
My cruising website is: ·www.bluemagic.biz·· MultiBladeProp is: www.bluemagic.biz/cluso.htm
RE: FDX - not sure this is possible ... or it's more sophisticated than I can wrap my head around at the moment. At this point, I'm planning on a rather dumb intellisense [noparse]:)[/noparse] ... it just recognizes the input tokens... scanning the input file is a big (but maybe possible) leap.
Just curious, why "FDX" ? as opposed to any other 3 keys?
- H
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A dedicated editor might be necessary for finding user object methods.
I use bstc list files for getting the right stuff in my debugger tools.
OBJ
FDX : "FullDuplexSerial"
Your program would now scan "FullDuplexSerial.spin" and save the PUB lines.
When your program saw...
FDX.
Intellisense would display the PUB lines (less the word PUB of course). That is, it displays all options that may follow FDX. such as FDX.tx(char)
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Links to other interesting threads:
· Home of the MultiBladeProps: TriBlade,·RamBlade,·SixBlade, website
· Single Board Computer:·3 Propeller ICs·and a·TriBladeProp board (ZiCog Z80 Emulator)
· Prop Tools under Development or Completed (Index)
· Emulators: CPUs Z80 etc; Micros Altair etc;· Terminals·VT100 etc; (Index) ZiCog (Z80) , MoCog (6809)
· Search the Propeller forums·(uses advanced Google search)
My cruising website is: ·www.bluemagic.biz·· MultiBladeProp is: www.bluemagic.biz/cluso.htm
This thing is pretty simple - that's why I said 'some' intellisense features.
BTW, I am still noodling with SPUD. And the debugger stuff you've done, as well as Ariba's wonderful PASD, were part of what got me thinking in this direction in the first place.
I don't want to write YAPE (Yet Another Prop Editor [noparse]:)[/noparse] ... and I hoping that this thing is open ended enough that others will pick up and run with it to other things.
DOH! I should have guessed ... was thinking more in the clouds, like "Forum Distributed object eXchange" ... thanks for bringing me back to Earth.· OK,·though it·might be doable, this might be way to cludgy to work right.· Think of it more like a keyboard watcher that does an action when it recoginizes a token, not something that's embedded insider the editor... although it does have the ability to read the files on the fly. Yes, this might be a PITA - There isn't an easy way to figure out if and when you're in a comment or string because it's not embedded in the editor.· Well, actually, it *is* possible, but don't expect that until version 2 or 3 (and I'd be needing help from others here.) I think the first version would let you toggle the verbosity level, or merely turn the helper off/on. ... am testing this as we speak [noparse]:)[/noparse] Worst cause is you'd have to hover over the ESC key to dismiss the window... gotta pay your dues somehow [noparse]:)[/noparse]) ... remember this is not a new Prop IDE.
- H
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