| Opinions on Bold Method Names in 3.0 M3 [message #91731] |
Wed, 03 September 2003 08:29  |
Eclipse User |
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Originally posted by: faust.acm.org
Has anybody turned on Bold style for Method Names
(Window->Prefs->Java->Editor->Syntax:Method Names/Bold checkbox)? I'm a fan
and I'd like this to be on by default. Opinions?
Randy
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| Re: Opinions on Bold Method Names in 3.0 M3 [message #92964 is a reply to message #92063] |
Fri, 05 September 2003 18:12  |
| Eclipse User |
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"Simon Tardell" <simon+eclipse@tardell.se> wrote in message
news:bj6puq$chj$1@eclipse.org...
> Syntax colouring is a rare goods in the sense that too
> much of it will make your code look like a christmas tree (an American
> christmas tree...;), so it seems wise to apply it when it really adds
> something of value only.
I spent over a year working daily with the Source Insight IDE, and it made
heavy use of systax decoration. It was capable of assigning patterns to
hierarchies of syntax elements. The end result was that every element in a
file had a different combination of color, size and font style (bold,
emphasis, etc.) The one thing that was stable was your choice of font. It
had sophisticated algorithms for emulating monofont spacing when using
proportional fonts, so your code always lined up as intended.
This sounds like the Christmas Tree mentioned above, and indeed it looked
like it. But two things made it an exceptional feature that I miss quite a
bit:
1) A single keystroke toggled all decoration on and off. The transition was
instantaneous, so I used the feature quite often. This helped when you
worked in a fairly busy file.
2) You quickly get used to certain decorators and color having important
meaning. I particularly paid attention to the scoping stuff -- specific
colours and font styles were assigned to global, module and local variables,
so it was obvious immediately if you were not referring to the right var.
3) Ok ... I said 2, but there is a third. Highly emphasized method names
provide an extra level of structure that really helps when scanning a file.
I know that the outline view handles this, but I always prefer scrolling the
actual code. Just a personal quirk.
One really kinky feature is that you could, in addition to bold or italic,
adjust the size of a token. I had method names showing in dark blue, bold
text at 110% normal size. I think the default was 120%. This worked out
really well and I'd love to be able to set this stuff up in Eclipse. Since
Eclipse is already so good at tracking the meaning of specific tokens, maybe
the feature could be made completely generic instead of just method names? I
guess that would require a lot of someone's time :-)
Anyway, I am a fan of powerful syntax hilighting.
> It is more important to colour things that are not so obvious, e.g. the
> scope of a variable or if a type is an interface, abstract or concrete
class
> (shameless plug: Vote 30154
> https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=30154 and 36789
> https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=36789!).
As mentioned above, this is exactly the area where most of the benefit was
realized in the Source Insight implementation. I personally feel that a
generic implementation is far more useful in the long run though ....
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