keystroke to insert popular empty element? (para, etc)

[idiotprogrammer]

I was looking at the features of Vex visual editor http://vex.sourceforge.net/vision.html
, and saw this feature ( Pressing Enter at the end of a paragraph should cause a new paragraph to be created.).

That first feature sounds really useful and it's something I really miss in Oxygen. I know XMetal has that feature, and it's extremely useful from a time standpoint.

Actually I vaguely remember in a previous version of Oyxgen, the context menu Refactoring --> Surround with Tag would remember the tag you previously selected, so I could repeat that command fairly easily. The problem is you're having to surround previously written content, not write new comment.

You offer content completion which though very useful becomes unwieldy because:

1)sometimes you have lots of elements to choose from! And guess what--the most commonly used elements are NOT the ones that start with the letter A
2)you can't simplify this as a keystroke. I would love the ability to create a custom keystroke or macro which would insert a particular empty element I use frequently.

What I'd like is a feature which inserts by default an empty element of your choosing. I have checked other aspects of Oxygen (grid view and outline view), and there is not an easy way to do this. Can you suggest some way to do this in Oxygen?

This is a key feature for technical writers. I don't know if techical writers are your target audience, but at an academic conference of scholars I attended, Oxygen was the most popular editor.

Another issue for me is mousestrokes vs. keystrokes. I have a hard time using a mouse for extended periods of time. So using context menus is just not very pleasant for me.

I look forward to ideas.

Robert Nagle
idiotprogrammer
Houston, Texas

[george]

Dear Robert,

The order of proposals in the oXygen content completion is not only alphabetical. The last 5 most recently used proposals are first in the list, therefore once you insert a para and want to insert another para then the first proposal is para.

The surround with can be triggered also for no selection, in that case it just inserts an element and positions the caret inside.

Check also the code templates (abbreviations). These allows you to define not only an element but a a fragment of code that you can easily enter through a short name. All you have to do is to type a prefix for that name and press CTRL_Space. If the prefix matches a single entry then that entry is expanded automatically, if there are more entries then a content completion like popup appears allowing you to choose the entry you want. Note that you define also the caret position after the code template is inserted so after insertion you are in the best position to continue editing.

Best Regards,
George

[idiotprogrammer]

Thanks. This is useful information.

I notice there is in the Code Completion option something to "Show Most Recent Items" and also a numerical value you can choose. I've checked that and use the default 6.

However, as the screenshot indicates, http://www.flickr.com/photos/rjnagle/310384835/
that is not working on my version.

Except for maybe the a tag, I have never used the things appearing in code completion.

Any guesses about what might be going on? Things to check for?

[sorin_ristache]

Hello,

The "Show Most Recent Items" option brings to the top of the content completion popup the items that you inserted most recently in the current document using the content completion popup. These most recent items are listed in the order that they were inserted in the document, starting with the most recent one. They are separated from the other items of the popup with a thin grey line. The other items are sorted alphabetically.

Except for maybe the a tag, I have never used the things appearing in code completion.

So if you never inserted an item from the popup in the edited document by pressing Enter or Tab on that item when it was selected in the popup then there is no recent item that must be promoted to the top of the popup and separated from the others with a grey line. As your screenshot indicates in your case there is no grey line that separates two groups of items. For example in the popup displayed in your screenshot press Enter when the p item is selected, move the cursor after the <p></p> element inserted in the document when you pressed Enter, press < to invoke the popup again and the p item will be displayed at the top of the popup, separated with a grey line from the next items (a, abbr, address, etc).


Regards,
Sorin

[idiotprogrammer]

Wow, what a nonobvious answer!

I use code completion all the time, but I never press enter; i just press tab.

Now it works, and now Oxygen is much more enjoyable!

[sorin_ristache]

The Tab key has the same effect as the Enter key on the selected item of the content completion popup and on the list of most recently used items.


Regards,
Sorin