Option for Home key to always jump to column 1

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abqbill
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Last visit: Mon Sep 28, 2020 1:20 pm

Option for Home key to always jump to column 1

Post by abqbill »

Hi,

Other editors I have used such as EmEditor, Visual Studio, and UltraEdit have the ability to adjust the Home key so that it always jumps to column 1. Right now PrimalScript always moves to the first non-whitespace character on the line.

I also noticed that if the cursor is on a line that contains only whitespace characters and the cursor is in the middle of the line, pressing the Home key will actually relocate the cursor to the end of the line, which feels backwards (that's what the End key is supposed to do).

Can we please get an option in PrimalScript somewhere to make the Home key always jump to column 1?

Thanks!

Bill
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Alexander Riedel
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Re: Option for Home key to always jump to column 1

Post by Alexander Riedel »

Where is this option in Visual Studio? I can't find anything on mine.
Anyone else has a problem with the current Visual Studio like behavior? Please speak up.
Alexander Riedel
SAPIEN Technologies, Inc.
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abqbill
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Re: Option for Home key to always jump to column 1

Post by abqbill »

Alexander Riedel wrote:Where is this option in Visual Studio? I can't find anything on mine.
In Visual Studio 2012:

1. Go to Tools|Options, then select Keyboard from left hand list

2. From the command list, choose Edit.LineFirstColumn

3. For 'Use new shortcut in', choose 'Text Editor'

4. For shortcut keys, press the Home key

This reassigns the Home key from the default setting (Edit.LineStart).

It would be great if we could have this level of flexibility in keyboard mapping in PrimalScript (like a true IDE), but just an option to configure the Home key to always jump to column 1 would be a great addition.

Thanks!

Bill
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Alexander Riedel
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Re: Option for Home key to always jump to column 1

Post by Alexander Riedel »

Thank you for that information.
Alexander Riedel
SAPIEN Technologies, Inc.
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abqbill
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Re: Option for Home key to always jump to column 1

Post by abqbill »

Thx for listening. Is this hard to implement? I would be so happy if we had this as an option in PrimalScript.

Thanks!

Bill
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Alexander Riedel
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Re: Option for Home key to always jump to column 1

Post by Alexander Riedel »

It's not really a question of whether it is hard to implement.
We simply cannot add an option because one or maybe two people ask for it. That creates a huge overload of options and settings no one uses.

What you did in Visual Studio is not an option to turn that Home key feature off, you simply re-assigned the Home keys function.

There was a discussion about this in 2007 started by you in this forum. Since then no on else asked for this. I have looked at a large number of other editors and virtually all of them use the Home key the same way as PrimalScript or PowerShell Studio.

I have asked a few people yesterday and all of them agree that the current behavior makes sense. There is virtually never a case where you want to go to the very beginning of the line first rather than the beginning of the code. If you really need to, hitting Home again will do that. It seems that everyone I asked uses this instinctively that way, most of them not even aware that it could be any other way.
It is a standard behavior from what I can tell, like hitting F1 to get help.

I am taking the time to write this long winded response so you are aware that we are not just ignoring you, or anyone else. But there are many things to add, change, improve, add options for, that have a much higher priority.

So unless a sufficiently large number of users jump on this thread and tell us "oh yeah, this is atrocious" I cannot warrant adding an option labeled "AbqBill's Home key" ;-)
Please understand that this has nothing to do with you, but if I fulfill your "one person" request, how can I deny that one guy who asks for a VI command line interface his wish? ;-)

So, all PrimalScript users: Does the current Home key behavior need to be changed, optioned or left as it is?
Alexander Riedel
SAPIEN Technologies, Inc.
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abqbill
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Re: Option for Home key to always jump to column 1

Post by abqbill »

Alexander Riedel wrote:What you did in Visual Studio is not an option to turn that Home key feature off, you simply re-assigned the Home keys function.
Yes, exactly. The steps I posted map the Home key to a preferred behavior, which has the same effect (the point being that I can configure Visual Studio to a behavior that is preferable for me).
Alexander Riedel wrote:I have asked a few people yesterday and all of them agree that the current behavior makes sense. There is virtually never a case where you want to go to the very beginning of the line first rather than the beginning of the code.
This might be because they haven't worked for a long number of years with editors where the Home key always goes to column 1. I have worked with a large number of text editors (over a course of almost 30 years) and in my experience the "Home key jumps to first non-whitespace character on the line" seems to be a fairly recent kind of invention.

Most other professional-level text editors have some kind of configuration capability for key mapping. It seems like PrimalScript should add this kind of configurability for user who are used to other IDEs. In this way people could configure preferred keystrokes instead of having to learn new ones. IMO, you could then market PrimalScript as more of a full-fledged IDE rather than just an admin scripter tool, and find a whole new market segment!
Alexander Riedel wrote:Please understand that this has nothing to do with you, but if I fulfill your "one person" request, how can I deny that one guy who asks for a VI command line interface his wish?
I understand what you're saying. However, I would say that there is a difference between "we don't want to do that because the development time doesn't warrant it" vs. a simple check box that 1) isn't hard to implement, 2) defaults to the normal behavior and doesn't affect most users, and 3) would make at least one* developer's life much easier when working with the product.

Thanks!

Bill

* At least one that's asking for it here. There may be others that would use the option if it was there but haven't asked (they don't know about this forum, it never occurred to them to ask, etc.).
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Alexander Riedel
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Re: Option for Home key to always jump to column 1

Post by Alexander Riedel »

I have worked with editors for about 30 years too and the Home key to first character vs. column one is about 17 years old. Visual Studio in 1997 had that behavior. I added it to PrimalScript 1.0 because everyone testing it told me that it needs to be that way.

I remember having to adjust to Ctrl+Y no longer being the Delete Line key. Sometimes you just have to embrace change and not get stuck in the past.
Alexander Riedel
SAPIEN Technologies, Inc.
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abqbill
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Re: Option for Home key to always jump to column 1

Post by abqbill »

Alexander Riedel wrote:Sometimes you just have to embrace change and not get stuck in the past.
Really? An ad hominem argument?

I really can't imagine the resistance to this simple request. I'm not asking for something huge. Just a simple usability enhancement.

Bill
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