Codea Editor Suggestions

Suggestions
1

The editor is really impressive, although hats off to those of you who have done large projects on the small iPad screen. I’m so used to my 34" ultra-wide monitor littered with windows that it is certainly a challenge!

I have some suggestions to put forward that would help me and maybe others cope, please feel free to ignore. I’m sure there are far more pressing/interesting things to work on. Some are probably impossible anyway!

-Copying text.

I think it would be great if the copy menu included a ‘Select line’ and/or a ‘Select and cut line’ option. I spend a lot of time moving the odd line of code around this would be a great help.

Similarly, if you were on a function header, maybe have a ‘select function’ option that selected the whole function.

-At the top of the screen, have a drop-down that listed all the functions in that file. Selecting a function would take you straight to it in the editor.

-When you use the ‘Reference’ function and get the view of the manual on the left of the screen (fantastic feature btw). A one-touch way to close it would be nice. Most of the time I have to press back three times to get rid of the panel of information.

-When coming back from running the program, it would be great if the cursor was where you left it and the keyboard showing.

-When the keyboard isn’t showing, tapping and holding the screen shows the magnifier. When the keyboard is showing you get the magnifier and cursor. Could it go straight to the cursor mode when the keyboard isn’t up? This would be less important if the above point could be done.

-Add an optional row of number keys to the keyboard.

-Being able to view two projects side by would be great, although appreciate space is rather limited. Especially at the moment as a beginner, I’m hoping between projects to copy/reference bits all the time. Or a quick way to flip between projects without losing your place.

-I’m thinking of going mad and splashing out on a Brydge Pro+ keyboard. It seems a stupid price until Apple announced their keyboard with trackpad!

https://www.brydge.com/products/brydge-pro-plus-for-ipad-pro?variant=31717947441257

How is Codea with a mouse/trackpad?

2

@RaggedTooth great suggestions! Thank you. I’m improving the editor at the moment so I’ll definitely consider these

  1. On selecting lines: you can tap the line number to quickly select the entire line. You can drag in the line gutter to select a range of lines. These might be useful for you (the drag behaviour might make it easier for you to select functions too?)

  2. Ability to jump to functions is something I would like to add. Ideally with a convenient keyboard shortcut so you can navigate to the function/symbol by typing

  3. You can also close the reference panel by dragging the little handle in the divider between the reference pane and the code editor. Just drag it all the way to the left to get rid of it

  4. On maintaining state when returning to code I agree, this state saving is something I’m trying to improve in the next update

  5. On when the keyboard isn’t showing: I’m currently replacing all the custom editing UI (from the selection behaviour to magnifying loupe) with Apple’s standard text UI, so I may have less control over this going forward

  6. Additional row of numbers: on iPad you can swipe down on the top row of letters to quickly insert the number at the top of that key. Though on iPhone you don’t get this

  7. I’m looking into ways to make it easier to jump between projects to quickly reference code

  8. Wait for the Apple one if you have the iPad Pro, it seems like it’ll be better especially with the trackpad

  9. I’m currently in the middle of adding trackpad support. Codea has keyboard support (hold down command key to get a list of shortcuts in any view)

3

Thanks for the reply. I knew there would be ways to do some of the things I wanted, it’s just finding these things. And good to hear/see the project is always in development.

  1. I know about swiping down for quick number access, that swipe is useful for occasional use, but drives me a little mad when it’s something as frequently used as numbers. I guess it will come with time.

  2. I’ve had a Brydge keyboard for my 10.5" Pro in the past, they’re pretty good. The Pro+ keyboard has a trackpad too.

The 11" comes in at an eyewatering £186 (UK price), which seems scary. Then Apple announced their keyboard, which looks great and would be the one I’d choose, however, the 11" is £299! (and the 12.9" £349!)

I’m crazy, but I just can’t justify those numbers!

When I start looking at keyboards, I suddenly start to think should I ‘retire’ my wife’s MacBook (or pick up a used one) and use that instead of my iPad…

4

Just be wary of the Brydge Pro, I recently read a review that said the trackpad is quite bad https://sixcolors.com/post/2020/04/review-brydge-pro-ipad-keyboard-with-trackpad/

And given all the apps that will be updating to support trackpad it would be a shame to invest in a keyboard with a poor trackpad at this time

5

Thanks. Yes, I just read similar too after posting the above. It seems they came to the market a bit too quickly before Apple introduced the extra functionality in 13.4

But £300 for a keyboard?!

I’ll dust off my magic trackpad, if I ever get back to the office to find it, and see how good a trackpad and iOS is before making any rash decisions…

6

Yeah, I’ve been using my trackpad for developing Codea trackpad support and it’s quite an interesting take on a mouse cursor