Re: Shortcuts Indent/Unindent

On 3/27/2017 6:55 PM, John Yeung wrote:

On Mon, Mar 27, 2017 at 5:18 PM, Buck Calabro <kc2hiz@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On 3/27/2017 4:47 PM, Tools/400 wrote:

Does RDi (9.5.1) provide functions and shortcuts for
indenting/unindenting selected source lines?

Yes!
It may seem a bit clunky but I got used to it.

It seems a little odd to me that this isn't one of the core,
streamlined, unclunky functions of a programmer's editor.

I apologise for being unable to be both clear and concise. I can often
get one, but it seems to be at the expense of the other.

I deliberately used the phrase 'seem a bit clunky' because many people
seem to have a mental bobble when trying to use RDi. In particular,
they expect RDi to act like Word, or some other Windows app. RDi is not
Word with an accent; it is its own unique, individual thing.

First, select the lines to indent/outdent with Ctrl-L, not with the
normal Windows stream selection keys.

Sorry, I didn't understand that sentence. It's probably because I
don't have or use RDi; I imagine it should have made sense to most
readers of this list.

RDi has several ways to select text. One is stream selection, which is
quite similar to Windows apps like Word. You hold down Shift and move
the cursor around and the text is selected as a stream of bytes,
including line endings, tabs, etc. You can, if you like, select a few
characters from any part of a line, or select a chunk of bytes that
covers many thousands of lines, with partial selection of the first and
last lines.

Another is Line selection, where the selector (for lack of better
vocabulary) chooses entire lines. You can't choose a part of a line;
it's one or more entire lines.

Another is Block selection, where you essentially choose a rectangular
slice of text that disregards line endings, tabs, etc. I find myself
using this to create a data structure out of fixed-format Factor 2
specifications, for example. I can copy just the rectangular block of
field names and paste that into dcl-ds specs.

The point of 'seems clunky' is that if one wants to indent /lines/ one
must select /lines/ not a random-ish stream of bytes.

So, what does "Ctrl-L the top line" mean? Does pressing that key combo
mark the whole line?

As Michael noted, I meant Alt-L, and yes it selects the entire line. I
can either Shift + down to extend the selection to include additional
entire lines, or I can move (by any means) to the bottom line and press
Alt-L and RDi will select all of the entire lines inclusive of the two
on which I pressed Alt-L.

indentation selection rather than a regular selection? Or perhaps it
will be both an indentation selection *and* a regular selection?

Oy.

There's no 'indentation selection' - it's Line Selection. And it can be
used for anything; copy/paste/cut - and unique to Line Selection,
In/Outdent.

Wow. You have to go to the trouble of making some kind of *special*
selection, not just a regular selection,

Line Selection /is/ a regular selection.

and then these are not simply
Tab and Shift+Tab, respectively?

Correct.

Are they at least easily rebindable
to Tab and Shift+Tab,

No.

or would one have to resort to AutoHotkey for
this?

Tab has so many different uses in any editor I can't imagine how I'd use
AHK for this.

To remove the selection, Alt-U

While the indentation selection is active, can you make a regular
selection somewhere else and do regular operations on that selection?

No. Again, Line Selection /is/ a regular selection.

This whole indentation selection thing... is this something that was
implemented specifically for RDi, or is this how it's done in Eclipse?

Javascript uses Ctrl-I to indent.

I would be surprised if it's an Eclipse thing, but then I would also
be surprised that RDi should have to have its own way to do this.

RDi isn't greenfield; it's got a past. I may be the only person on this
list who used Code/400 on OS/2 but at least my muscle memory appreciates
the continuity.

If you were an Emacs-er on a Vim mailing list, you'd probably have as
many wonderments as you have on this one. Don't get me wrong - that's
cool! I've had several of my 'inertia (always did it like that)'
assumptions pleasantly discarded due to the questions on this list, so I
appreciate that very much.

I'm a tad surprised though that an SEU user didn't suggest the RRnn
block command. Which work fine in RDi and always have. :-)