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How to prevent resources from fading away too quickly? [message #527521] Thu, 15 April 2010 14:02 Go to next message
Matthias Baas is currently offline Matthias BaasFriend
Messages: 6
Registered: July 2009
Junior Member
Hi,

is there any option that allows me to control how quickly resources fade off and when they are actually removed from the context?
I have used Mylyn for a while now but I find resources fade off too quickly for my liking and, personally, I would actually prefer if they did not get removed from the context at all (unless I remove them explicitly, of course). It happens quite often that I have to search for files or functions I need because they have been removed from the navigator or outliner.

I had a look at the preferences but couldn't find any option related to this. Assuming there is no such option, would it be possible to add one that prevents Mylyn from removing resources from the context on its own?

(in case it's relevant, I'm using Mylyn 3.3.3 under Eclipse 3.5.2 on Linux)

Thanks,

- Matthias -
Re: How to prevent resources from fading away too quickly? [message #527777 is a reply to message #527521] Fri, 16 April 2010 12:52 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Jörg Thönnes is currently offline Jörg ThönnesFriend
Messages: 229
Registered: July 2009
Senior Member
Hi Matthias,

if you close a resource, it is removed from the context -- this is by design and cannot be changed.

But if you want to mark a resource as important, use land marks, i.e. right-click and "Mark as
Landmark". This does not work on all resources, though.

Cheers, Jörg

On 04/15/10 16:03, Matthias Baas wrote:
> Hi,
>
> is there any option that allows me to control how quickly resources fade
> off and when they are actually removed from the context?
> I have used Mylyn for a while now but I find resources fade off too
> quickly for my liking and, personally, I would actually prefer if they
> did not get removed from the context at all (unless I remove them
> explicitly, of course). It happens quite often that I have to search for
> files or functions I need because they have been removed from the
> navigator or outliner.
>
> I had a look at the preferences but couldn't find any option related to
> this. Assuming there is no such option, would it be possible to add one
> that prevents Mylyn from removing resources from the context on its own?
>
> (in case it's relevant, I'm using Mylyn 3.3.3 under Eclipse 3.5.2 on Linux)
>
> Thanks,
>
> - Matthias -
>
Re: How to prevent resources from fading away too quickly? [message #527829 is a reply to message #527777] Fri, 16 April 2010 15:25 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Matthias Baas is currently offline Matthias BaasFriend
Messages: 6
Registered: July 2009
Junior Member
Hi Jörg,

Jörg Thönnes wrote on Fri, 16 April 2010 08:52

if you close a resource, it is removed from the context -- this is by design and cannot be changed.


Well, in the Tasks preferences there is the option "Remove file from context when editor is closed" which I actually did disable and it also works for me. After closing a file, it's still part of the context.

Jörg Thönnes wrote on Fri, 16 April 2010 08:52

But if you want to mark a resource as important, use land marks, i.e. right-click and "Mark as
Landmark". This does not work on all resources, though.



Yes, I'm aware of that and I suppose it might be a workaround. But as you said, sometimes it doesn't work. I just tested it again on some C++ source files and sometimes I do get a warning that the file can't be marked as a landmark and sometimes I don't (in which case I don't see any noticeable effect, so I don't know if they have been marked or not). By the way, I seem to remember that setting a file as a landmark would display it in bold. That's not the case anymore. In fact, none of the files in the Navigator are displayed in bold anymore (I think that's since I've upgraded to Mylyn v3.3.3). How can I actually see if a file is "landmarked" or not?

But anyway, even when marking as landmark would work, then this would mean I had to mark every required file as a landmark to get my desired behavior. But files may get added to the context on-the-fly as I visit them (which is fine) at which point I'm focusing on the code I'm looking at and not on the Navigator. So, having to check if I have to mark the file as a landmark would be rather distracting whereas the other case of removing files from the context is less distracting (in my case) because I only do that when I'm looking at the Navigator anyway and notice that there's some stuff I don't need anymore, so in that case my focus is already directed at the Navigator. This is why I would find such an option to suppress automatic removals quite useful.

Cheers,

- Matthias -
Re: How to prevent resources from fading away too quickly? [message #527959 is a reply to message #527829] Sat, 17 April 2010 11:56 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Jörg Thönnes is currently offline Jörg ThönnesFriend
Messages: 229
Registered: July 2009
Senior Member
Hi Matthias,

On 04/16/10 17:25, Matthias Baas wrote:
> Jörg Thönnes wrote on Fri, 16 April 2010 08:52
>> if you close a resource, it is removed from the context -- this is by
>> design and cannot be changed.
>
> Well, in the Tasks preferences there is the option "Remove file from
> context when editor is closed" which I actually did disable and it also
> works for me. After closing a file, it's still part of the context.

OK.

> Jörg Thönnes wrote on Fri, 16 April 2010 08:52
>> But if you want to mark a resource as important, use land marks, i.e.
>> right-click and "Mark as
>> Landmark". This does not work on all resources, though.
>
> Yes, I'm aware of that and I suppose it might be a workaround. But as
> you said, sometimes it doesn't work. I just tested it again on some C++
> source files and sometimes I do get a warning that the file can't be
> marked as a landmark and sometimes I don't (in which case I don't see
> any noticeable effect, so I don't know if they have been marked or not).
> By the way, I seem to remember that setting a file as a landmark would
> display it in bold. That's not the case anymore. In fact, none of the
> files in the Navigator are displayed in bold anymore (I think that's
> since I've upgraded to Mylyn v3.3.3). How can I actually see if a file
> is "landmarked" or not?

Hmmm, maybe the Landmark feature does not always work as expected or has even bugs in some areas.
I suggest you file one or more Eclipse Mylyn bug so that your expectations are noticed by the Mylyn
team. They are quite interested than things work as people would expect it.

> But anyway, even when marking as landmark would work, then this would
> mean I had to mark every required file as a landmark to get my desired
> behavior. But files may get added to the context on-the-fly as I visit
> them (which is fine) at which point I'm focusing on the code I'm looking
> at and not on the Navigator. So, having to check if I have to mark the
> file as a landmark would be rather distracting whereas the other case of
> removing files from the context is less distracting (in my case) because
> I only do that when I'm looking at the Navigator anyway and notice that
> there's some stuff I don't need anymore, so in that case my focus is
> already directed at the Navigator. This is why I would find such an
> option to suppress automatic removals quite useful.

Did you play with the "Context" tab of the task window. Here you have a slider which modifies the
threshold. Maybe your files are below some threshold and are not shown.

In addition, some connectors allow to attach/retrieve a task context so if you attach your current
context to the task, you (or somebody else) could retrieve it in order to continue were you left
off. Note, that this overwrites the current context.

Starting from these feature, some enhancements could be suggested, e.g.

- retrieve task context by merging (instead of overwriting)
- allow to define different thresholds (levels of interest) which can be quickly switched
This is esp. useful for long-running tasks which have collected a lot of context information
- think of other operations on contexts...

Would be nice to hear of workable ideas and possibly some RFE bugs for Mylyn.

Cheers, Jörg
Re: How to prevent resources from fading away too quickly? [message #528874 is a reply to message #527959] Thu, 22 April 2010 09:16 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Matthias Baas is currently offline Matthias BaasFriend
Messages: 6
Registered: July 2009
Junior Member
Jörg Thönnes wrote on Sat, 17 April 2010 07:56

Hmmm, maybe the Landmark feature does not always work as expected or has even bugs in some areas.
I suggest you file one or more Eclipse Mylyn bug so that your expectations are noticed by the Mylyn team. They are quite interested than things work as people would expect it.



I have added a feature request for my initial problem (telling Mylyn not to remove resources automatically): https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=310071
When such an option was available, I wouldn't actually need the landmark feature anymore which would only be a workaround anyway. Apart from that, I'm not exactly sure where to begin describing my problem with the landmark feature. Currently, I find it a bit confusing as it typically doesn't give me any feedback at all when used on files (C++ files and some application-specific script files) whereas it seems to work when applied to classes, for example (but I'm not using this feature as I'm not aware of a view that can display classes from across files in a concise way. I find the Project Explorer too cluttered, especially when used with Mylyn as it always expands everything. This is why I actually switched to using the Navigator instead of the Project Explorer when I started using Mylyn).

Jörg Thönnes wrote on Sat, 17 April 2010 07:56

Did you play with the "Context" tab of the task window. Here you have a slider which modifies the threshold. Maybe your files are below some threshold and are not shown.



I played around with that, but this only changes what's displayed in the context tab and doesn't seem to have an effect on the actual views (which is also how it's described in the docs, so I guess that is ok).

Cheers,

- Matthias -
Re: How to prevent resources from fading away too quickly? [message #601095 is a reply to message #527777] Fri, 16 April 2010 15:25 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Matthias Baas is currently offline Matthias BaasFriend
Messages: 6
Registered: July 2009
Junior Member
Hi Jörg,

Jörg Thönnes wrote on Fri, 16 April 2010 08:52
> if you close a resource, it is removed from the context -- this is by design and cannot be changed.


Well, in the Tasks preferences there is the option "Remove file from context when editor is closed" which I actually did disable and it also works for me. After closing a file, it's still part of the context.

Jörg Thönnes wrote on Fri, 16 April 2010 08:52
> But if you want to mark a resource as important, use land marks, i.e. right-click and "Mark as
> Landmark". This does not work on all resources, though.


Yes, I'm aware of that and I suppose it might be a workaround. But as you said, sometimes it doesn't work. I just tested it again on some C++ source files and sometimes I do get a warning that the file can't be marked as a landmark and sometimes I don't (in which case I don't see any noticeable effect, so I don't know if they have been marked or not). By the way, I seem to remember that setting a file as a landmark would display it in bold. That's not the case anymore. In fact, none of the files in the Navigator are displayed in bold anymore (I think that's since I've upgraded to Mylyn v3.3.3). How can I actually see if a file is "landmarked" or not?

But anyway, even when marking as landmark would work, then this would mean I had to mark every required file as a landmark to get my desired behavior. But files may get added to the context on-the-fly as I visit them (which is fine) at which point I'm focusing on the code I'm looking at and not on the Navigator. So, having to check if I have to mark the file as a landmark would be rather distracting whereas the other case of removing files from the context is less distracting (in my case) because I only do that when I'm looking at the Navigator anyway and notice that there's some stuff I don't need anymore, so in that case my focus is already directed at the Navigator. This is why I would find such an option to suppress automatic removals quite useful.

Cheers,

- Matthias -
Re: How to prevent resources from fading away too quickly? [message #601103 is a reply to message #601095] Sat, 17 April 2010 11:56 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Jörg Thönnes is currently offline Jörg ThönnesFriend
Messages: 229
Registered: July 2009
Senior Member
Hi Matthias,

On 04/16/10 17:25, Matthias Baas wrote:
> Jörg Thönnes wrote on Fri, 16 April 2010 08:52
>> if you close a resource, it is removed from the context -- this is by
>> design and cannot be changed.
>
> Well, in the Tasks preferences there is the option "Remove file from
> context when editor is closed" which I actually did disable and it also
> works for me. After closing a file, it's still part of the context.

OK.

> Jörg Thönnes wrote on Fri, 16 April 2010 08:52
>> But if you want to mark a resource as important, use land marks, i.e.
>> right-click and "Mark as
>> Landmark". This does not work on all resources, though.
>
> Yes, I'm aware of that and I suppose it might be a workaround. But as
> you said, sometimes it doesn't work. I just tested it again on some C++
> source files and sometimes I do get a warning that the file can't be
> marked as a landmark and sometimes I don't (in which case I don't see
> any noticeable effect, so I don't know if they have been marked or not).
> By the way, I seem to remember that setting a file as a landmark would
> display it in bold. That's not the case anymore. In fact, none of the
> files in the Navigator are displayed in bold anymore (I think that's
> since I've upgraded to Mylyn v3.3.3). How can I actually see if a file
> is "landmarked" or not?

Hmmm, maybe the Landmark feature does not always work as expected or has even bugs in some areas.
I suggest you file one or more Eclipse Mylyn bug so that your expectations are noticed by the Mylyn
team. They are quite interested than things work as people would expect it.

> But anyway, even when marking as landmark would work, then this would
> mean I had to mark every required file as a landmark to get my desired
> behavior. But files may get added to the context on-the-fly as I visit
> them (which is fine) at which point I'm focusing on the code I'm looking
> at and not on the Navigator. So, having to check if I have to mark the
> file as a landmark would be rather distracting whereas the other case of
> removing files from the context is less distracting (in my case) because
> I only do that when I'm looking at the Navigator anyway and notice that
> there's some stuff I don't need anymore, so in that case my focus is
> already directed at the Navigator. This is why I would find such an
> option to suppress automatic removals quite useful.

Did you play with the "Context" tab of the task window. Here you have a slider which modifies the
threshold. Maybe your files are below some threshold and are not shown.

In addition, some connectors allow to attach/retrieve a task context so if you attach your current
context to the task, you (or somebody else) could retrieve it in order to continue were you left
off. Note, that this overwrites the current context.

Starting from these feature, some enhancements could be suggested, e.g.

- retrieve task context by merging (instead of overwriting)
- allow to define different thresholds (levels of interest) which can be quickly switched
This is esp. useful for long-running tasks which have collected a lot of context information
- think of other operations on contexts...

Would be nice to hear of workable ideas and possibly some RFE bugs for Mylyn.

Cheers, Jörg
Re: How to prevent resources from fading away too quickly? [message #601171 is a reply to message #527959] Thu, 22 April 2010 09:16 Go to previous message
Matthias Baas is currently offline Matthias BaasFriend
Messages: 6
Registered: July 2009
Junior Member
Jörg Thönnes wrote on Sat, 17 April 2010 07:56
> Hmmm, maybe the Landmark feature does not always work as expected or has even bugs in some areas.
> I suggest you file one or more Eclipse Mylyn bug so that your expectations are noticed by the Mylyn team. They are quite interested than things work as people would expect it.


I have added a feature request for my initial problem (telling Mylyn not to remove resources automatically): https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=310071
When such an option was available, I wouldn't actually need the landmark feature anymore which would only be a workaround anyway. Apart from that, I'm not exactly sure where to begin describing my problem with the landmark feature. Currently, I find it a bit confusing as it typically doesn't give me any feedback at all when used on files (C++ files and some application-specific script files) whereas it seems to work when applied to classes, for example (but I'm not using this feature as I'm not aware of a view that can display classes from across files in a concise way. I find the Project Explorer too cluttered, especially when used with Mylyn as it always expands everything. This is why I actually switched to using the Navigator instead of the Project Explorer when I started using Mylyn).

Jörg Thönnes wrote on Sat, 17 April 2010 07:56
> Did you play with the "Context" tab of the task window. Here you have a slider which modifies the threshold. Maybe your files are below some threshold and are not shown.


I played around with that, but this only changes what's displayed in the context tab and doesn't seem to have an effect on the actual views (which is also how it's described in the docs, so I guess that is ok).

Cheers,

- Matthias -
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