Auto-Completion in Unix VI editor - variables

After using graphical IDE's like Visual Studio, I'm used to pressing CTRL+Space to auto-complete a variable or function name. Now, I know such a thing isn't completely possible in VI, but I heard there was a list of commands that could be mapped that allowed automatic completion of variables and functions in the current file opened. Does anyone know what this sequence is?

Just noticed that you said "vi"; I hope that "vim" is also okay.
It depends on the particular programming language, but in general, the magic word is Omnicomplete.
Put this into .vimrc:
filetype plugin on
set ofu=syntaxcomplete#Complete
Press Ctrl+N or Ctrl+P to trigger the completion. This is insanely customizable; you might like the tips here that make it work more like other IDEs.

Related

Is there a way to make IDEs (IntelliJ, PyCharm, VS Code) have fewer popups but still have completion?

I learned to program 30 years ago with Emacs. I'm starting to learn moderns IDEs such as "IntelliJ IDEA", "PyCharm", and "VS Code".
It's hard to adjust to how visually "busy" they are, with constant pop-up menus appearing every character I type.
Of course I want to be able to get suggestions for completion or parameter hints or other popups when necessary. I just don't want them to appear by default.
Some people are asking why popups are annoying. The main problem is that popups cover code above or below where I'm typing.
Emacs has completion. But it doesn't need a popup. For instance, dynamic completion works just fine 90% of the time, even though it's not smart enough to parse syntax or look up function and method definitions.
So I'd like to know if there are settings in JetBrains or VS Code IDE's that would help.
I'm aware of two kinds of popups.
(1) An offer to complete my typing, which appears below.
(2) Annotation of argument names and definitions, which appears above.
There may be other popups as well.
I'm aware that a popup can be dismissed with ESC. But often they just come back the moment you type another character.
What would be great is if the popup would not appear by default, but I could cause it to appear with a single keystroke. Or I could dismiss it and it would stay dismissed.
For PyCharm You can also try writing in "Disctraction Free Mode"
View -> Enter Distraction Free Mode
Which should give you a little screen of calm which will feel a lot more like emacs to you.
It's possible to adjust the behaviour via "Settings".
In IntelliJ IDEA, goto Menu File --> Settings ... , then navigate to Editor --> General --> Code Completion , or type something in the search field (upper left).
Perhaps you find more settings when you browse through Settings dialog.
To be honest, I didn't make a lot of tests with these settings, because I find the helper popups very useful.
Another option to get rid of some "noise" is to adjust settings for displaying parameter names in the code editor.
I switched this off completely.
Go to Settings --> Editor --> General --> Appearance
The new IDEs are really busy looking for libraries, checking/auto closing balanced parentheses, indenting, surrounding methods/functions/procedures/classes as you type. Sometimes I feel the same, but these IDEs are not plain text editors anymore. Every key stroke triggers something which can be time consuming. When the project gets larger and when it has lots of libraries, it can get even slower. Some IDEs have options to turn some of these options off. Every feature turned off will have some positive effect on responsiveness to some degree
But I think, instead of turning these features off, the best way to have these features on a responsive modern IDE is to use a computer with a fast cpu, an ssd drive and sufficient memory.

What is the principle by which keyboard shortcuts selected in IntelliJ IDEA?

There are lots of useful functions of Intellij IDEA and for many of them there are keyboard shortcuts.
But remembering shortcuts may be difficult, at least for me.
Are there some consistent guiding principles by which these shortcuts were selected by designers? I believe learning such principles would be helpful to memorize shortcuts itself.
I think that the closest answer you're going to get is "it depends". Some shortcuts are obviously chosen, because the keybinding describes what the shortcut does, for example ⌘+O means open, not only in IntelliJ but in many places throughout OS X.
Some shortcuts probably don't have any kind of such semantic meaning, such as Alt+Enter and are chosen because they are very frequently used and the placement of the keys relative to each other is comfortable.
Other keyboard shortcuts with similar purpose have the same starting sequence of keys. For instance the extract refactoring shortcuts, which are as follows:
⌘+Alt+M - extract method
⌘+Alt+C - extract constant
⌘+Alt+V - extract variable
⌘+Alt+F - extract field
⌘+Alt+P - extract parameter
So in such case you only need to remember that if you want to extract something, you press ⌘+Alt and the first letter of what you want to extract.
That being said, I don't believe that the way to learning the keybindings is memorizing them, but using them. If you use one keybinding multiple times, over the time you will memorize it. You can help this process for instance by locating the action you want to perform in the menu, but instead of clicking it look at the keyboard shortcut next to it and press it. Or find the action using ⌘+Shift+A, look at the shortcut and use it.
There are even plugins, which can help you with this, for instance Key Promoter which you can install via Settings/Plugins/Browse Repositories. This plugin shows you shortcut you can use when you invoke some actions by clicking it in menu, etc. It also shows you how many times you've used this action in such a way instead of using the corresponding shortcut.

Move line Up/Down shortcut in Visual Studio 2012

In VS2010 I had a shortcut set up Alt+Up/Down to move lines of code up or down, just like I used to have in Eclipse in my Java days.
Now since Power Tools and macros (which is how I set up this shortcut in VS2010) are not available in VS2012, how do I get this to work?
I've seen somebody mentioned that Resharper can do this, but for the love of fire and water, I can't find the command names in the list of commands that can do that.
I have tried ReSharper_MoveUp/MoveDown and that does not move lines up/down:
This moves blocks of text up and down. I just want line-by-line up or down, no fancy logic there.
Before
After ALT+Up (when cursor is on WriteLine line) I would like to see this:
I have seen these threads: What's the equivalent for eclipse's ALT+UP/DOWN (move line) in Visual Studio?, Visual Studio: hotkeys to move line up/down and move through recent changes, but none of the suggested solutions work in VS2012.
Any other ideas?
UPD 7 Nov 2012: . Extensions are catching up with Visual Studio 2012. Now I know at least 3 extensions that provide this functionality:
MoveLine Extension. Link provided by Carl G
Move Line Extension with modifications to 2010 version. By gius
Productivity Power Tools 2012. Have not actually tried this, but this blog post states it does the line move up/down
UPD 15 Nov 2012: Just stumbled across another extension that claims it does what is required here. Have not tried it though: LineMan Extension
UPD 10 May 2015 Just installed VS2015 RC and this is built-in already:
For those who arrived on this question using Visual Studio 2013 or above, the feature is built right into the program. Just use AltUp and AltDown to move the line with your cursor—or the selected lines—up and down.
If you wish to rebind it in Tools > Options > Environment > Keyboard, the keys are Edit.MoveSelectedLinesUp and Edit.MoveSelectedLinesDown. You may need to remove your new combination from other existing keys first.
Update: huzzah, Productivity PowerTools VS2012 is now available and offers this functionality (along with another personal favorite, Tools.AddEndTokenAtTheEnd.)
MoveLine Extension (compatible with VS 2012; I had to manually restart my VS in order to see the commands in VS's keyboard shortcut tool.)
Install ReSharper.
Open Tools -> Options -> Environment -> Keyboard (as shown in a picture)
Find "ReSharper.ReSharper_MoveUp"
In "Use new shortcut in:" choose: "Text Editor"
Click in "Press shortcut keys:" and press your shortcut (for example Alt+ArrowUp)
Press "Assign" button
Same with with "ReSharper.ReSharper_MoveDown"
P.S. Works fine for single lines and multiple selected lines, but removes selection after moved 1 line. Hope there are way to move multiple lines multiple times in one selection.
If you have Resharper, then you can hit Ctrl + Shift + Alt + ↑ to move the current line up. or Ctrl + Shift + Alt + ↓ to move one line down.
This works in VS 2012 Premium with Visual Studio keyboard scheme in Resharper 7 (7.0.97.60 to
be precise).
Edit: This is mapped to 'ReSharper.ReSharper_MoveUp'/'MoveDown' commands.
In Visual Studio 2017(atleast) I have below
You can use Move Line Command extension.
Just follow formula349's comment:
I was able to get this working with 2012 as-is.
Rename the package to .zip and unzip all files into a folder. Edit the extension.vsixmanifest file and look for the SupportedProducts XML node. Change the Version="10.0" to Version="11.0".
Re-zip the folder contents and rename back to .vsix. Works great!
While a lot of people seem to be recommending misc. Visual Studio Extensions and Resharper, I would like to point out there is a native hotkey that accomplishes this goal. I came to this question trying to find the answer, as my Resharper replaced my default hotkeys with their MoveUp and MoveDown versions.
And while Resharper's hotkeys do move things up and down, they are not what the original poster are looking for, and they are not what I wanted. These hotkeys move methods and blocks of code, not individual lines.
Visual studio has two hotkey commands to move your selected lines upwards or downwards.
These hotkeys are:
Edit.MoveSelectedLinesDown
Edit.MoveSelectedLinesUp
I am using Visual Studio 2013 however, so I am unaware if these exist in an older version. If 2012 does not have these hotkeys then perhaps an extension is the only solution.
Either way, I had an issue locating the exact hotkey within visual studio's list and it took me a good while to find these, so I hope that my solution manages to help someone else in a similar situation to my own.
Shift+Del and then Ctrl+V
Shift+Del does the cut (same as Ctrl+X) operation on the current line on which cursor is positioned.
Then you can use Ctrl+V to paste it at any place you like.
Good thing is that you don't need to select the complete current line, just the cursor needs to be positioned on the line.
One downside to using this shortcut is that you won't be able to see the line moving ( up or down ) lively in front of your eyes.
ReSharper's move up and move down shortcuts are smart - instead of just moving the current line (which can easily result in broken code), it will move the current statement up and down in the list of statements that make up the method body. This is much more powerful than just moving a single line of code.
But this doesn't help you get your statement inside the if block. Here you need to do one of two things.
Firstly, move the statement above the if block, then use Ctrl+Shift+Alt+Right to push it down in scope. The statement will now be inside the if block, and you can use up and down to move it around in there. You can also use Ctrl+Shift+Alt+Left to pull it up in scope, outside of the if block.
Alternatively, you can put the text caret on the outside of the closing brace of the if block and use Ctrl+Shift+Alt+Down to move the brace down, stepping over following statements, including them inside the if block.
These keys can do a lot more than just move a single statement. If you put the text caret on a method or class declaration, Up and Down will move the entire method or class declaration up and down. If you put the text caret in the parameter list of a method, Left and Right will rearrange individual parameters (and then Alt+Enter can invoke the Change Signature refactoring).
More details in the help pages.

Keyboard shortcut to Un/Comment out code in Mathematica 7?

A keyboard shortcut to comment/uncomment out a piece of code is common in other programming IDE's for languages like Java, .Net. I find it a very useful technique when experimenting through trial and error to temporarily comment out and uncomment lines, words and parts of the code to find out what is and isn't working.
I cannot find any such keyboard shortcut on the Mathematica front end in version 7. I know that it is possible to comment out code by selecting the code, right mouse click and select Un/Comment from the menu that appears but this is too slow while coding.
I tried to access this using the menu key Menu on the keyboard but Mathematica frontend doesn't respond to or recognise this key unlike other applications, this could have allowed a key combination for commenting. Can someone else verify that this isn't unique to my machine and that the key isn't recognised by mathematica. I looked at this question and looked in the KeyEventTranslations.tr file but I don't think there is any way to create a shortcut to do this(?). Should I just live with it?
Any other suggestions?
(I have seen there is an Emacs version of mathematica, I have never tried Emacs or this Mma version and imagine that it would have this ability but would prefer not to go to the trouble and uncertainty of installing it. Also I would guess that the Wolfram Workbench could do this, but that may not be worth the investment just for this.)
You can install the shortcut in Mathematica 7.0.x if you are willing to edit the Mathematica system file MenuSetup.tr. You can find it in the same location as the KeyEventTranslations.tr file (i.e. in the installation under "SystemFiles/FrontEnd/TextResources/platform"). In MenuSetup.tr, locate the following line under the definition of the Edit menu:
MenuItem["Check &Balance", "Balance", MenuKey["B", Modifiers->{"Control", "Shift"}]],
Immediately below that line, insert the following:
MenuItem["Un/C&omment Selection", KernelExecute[FE`toggleComment[]], MenuKey["/", Modifiers->{"Command"}], MenuEvaluator -> Automatic, Method -> "Queued"],
The Un/Comment Selection command is now available under the Edit menu, with the keyboard shortcut Cmd-/ or Alt-/ depending on your platform -- just like in Mathematica 8 where this command comes pre-installed.
Please take as read the usual disclaimers about hacking the Mathematica installation files -- no warranty is offered :)
I do not know of any way to map this function to some shortcut involving the Menu key.
Shortcut Key, No Menu
The preceding steps mimic what Mathematica 8 does by installing a new menu item. If you prefer to leave the menus unchanged, then you can install the shortcut in KeyEventTranslations.tr instead. Add the following line:
Item[KeyEvent["/", Modifiers->{Command}], KernelExecute[ToExpression["FE`toggleComment[]"]], MenuEvaluator -> Automatic, Method -> "Queued"]
You'll need a comma on the end of that line if it is not the last item in the list.
Select the code and press one of the following:
Alt+/
Alt-E-O
Alt+E+O
Notes:
Tested only on Windows, using Mathematica 8.
On my non-US keyboard (ABNT Brazil), the shortcut Alt+/ doesn't work, instead I use Alt+E+O.
Here is code for your KeyEventTranslations.tr file that will comment out code. I am still working on the other half.
Item[KeyEvent["/", Modifiers -> {Command}],
FrontEndExecute[{
NotebookApply[FrontEnd`InputNotebook[],
"(*\[SelectionPlaceholder]*)"
]
}]
],
This binds it to Alt+/ as it is in Mathematica 8.

tools / IDE that highlight function definition on which files [just wondering]

is there already any IDE / tools that if you highlight a function name, it will open the file where that function is defined on the next window so we could understaand what that function does?
you know just wondering.
Visual Studio has a "Go To Definition" feature available in its text editor. When the cursor is on a varible, function, class, and so on, you can right-click and select the "Go To Definition" menu item and it will take you to where the function is defined. If the definition is part of the .NET Framework, the feature will "jump" to the definition in the Object Browser for VB.NET projects or to the "meta-data" of C# projects
Are there any IDEs that don't do this? Every IDE I have ever used had this feature: several Smalltalk IDEs, Hopscotch, several Lisp IDEs, NetBeans, Eclipse, Visual Studio, VisualAge for Java Micro Edition, VisualAge for Java, VisualAge for Smalltalk. Even many text editors can do it: TextMate, Vim, Emacs, Notepad++.
By using something like ctags this is definitely possible, provided of course your favourite editor also has support for ctags. The good thing about ctags is that with a bit of tweaking it can be made to work with almost any language.
In Netbeans you highlight the function -> right button click -> Navigate -> Go To Declaration and it will open the file where this function has been created.
I use Eclipse as my Java IDE and find the F3 key to be the quickest way to open the declaration. Good description of this functionality below (from here):
F3: Open declaration. Alternatively,
you can click on the Declaration tab
(in the Java perspective, go to
Window, then Show View, then
Declaration). This key shows entire
method declarations in the declaration
pane when you click on a method call
in the code.
I haven't used this with other languages editors in Eclipse (Perspectives in Eclipse), but I'd guess the functionality is similar.