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 Feature Requests
 .rc files - Extracting ID codes
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thruska
Ketchup Master

71 Posts

Posted - Aug 22 2006 :  7:41:30 PM  Show Profile  Reply with Quote
I do a lot of switching between .rc files and my code. 90% of the switching is copying IDs from dialogs and menu items to the code. It would be really nifty to be able to select a bunch of elements on a dialog and then click a button to copy the IDs to the clipboard. Or, on a menu, select a parent menu (e.g. 'File') and click a button and copy the submenu's IDs to the clipboard.

In VAX, there is the .cpp and .h file switch feature. That is, click the button and it jumps between the .cpp and .h files of the same name. It would be great to also be able to quickly jump between the .rc source file in the "Text Editor" and the default visual editing mode. It would also be nice to, for example, have a dialog open, click the switch button to close the dialog and open the source file in the text editor, and have the cursor jump to the start of the dialog definition in the .rc file. Then, if I click the button again, it closes the source file and opens the dialog that the cursor is on.

The default behavior for .rc files is a big nuisance. I also realize this feature idea is a big change for VAX (a whole new toolbar!). The first part is more likely significantly harder to do than the second part but both will be pretty complicated.

Thomas Hruska
CubicleSoft President
http://www.cubiclesoft.com/

feline
Whole Tomato Software

United Kingdom
19001 Posts

Posted - Aug 26 2006 :  10:01:13 AM  Show Profile  Reply with Quote
significantly changing how alt-o works has come up before. unfortunately it feels as if everyone who suggest this want a different change.

if i understand this correctly (i never really do dialog programming using these methods) you want an "alternate" alt-o. you should be able to addapt the macro posted in this codeproject article:

http://www.codeproject.com/macro/VSHelper.asp

to do what you want.

managing the resource ID's almost sounds like the job of a separate plugin entirely. i am aware of the ResOrg plugin, but have never used it and do not really know what it does.

http://www.riverblade.co.uk/products/resorg/

does this offer any of the features you are looking for here?

zen is the art of being at one with the two'ness
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thruska
Ketchup Master

71 Posts

Posted - Aug 28 2006 :  6:26:15 PM  Show Profile  Reply with Quote
Well, currently, the VAX toolbar does not even show up when editing resources in the resource editor and alt-o (.h <-> .cpp) doesn't even work when editing a .rc file. VAX currently does almost nothing when it comes to resource editing.

I'm not really asking for an alternate alt-o, but the current alt-o doesn't work at all from within .rc files. Since it doesn't currently do anything at all, the interpretation of what hitting alt-o does in the case of a .rc file is left up to the developers as to what to do. IMO, it should switch between the .rc file and the associated .h file used for resource IDs. Then there should be a new icon that closes all open resource files and switches to the resource editor and opens the item currently selected in the .rc file. Then, in the resource editor, add a VAX toolbar (currently none shows up). There should be two buttons: One button closes all open resources in the resource editor and opens the .rc and .h files and jumps to the resource being edited in the .rc file. The other button copies selected item IDs to the clipboard.

The CodeProject article you mentioned MAY be able to do the switching but it requires some parsing of the .rc file to determine where the .h file is - and that's a low priority feature because I don't like editing the .rc and .h files by hand (if I edit, it is usually just the .rc file because Ctrl-D is a pain to work with on large dialogs).

The main feature I'd like to see is selecting a bunch of items on a dialog (and menus too) and copy the IDs to the clipboard.

The ResOrg tool fixes resource IDs if you managed to hose them in a really large project. Good to know it exists, but it isn't relevant to this request.

I don't know if this is even something that should be in VAX, but I do a lot of resource'ish things. It is a pain to create each new dialog because I don't use the IDE's automatic code generators. I subclass a lot of the items on each dialog for custom functionality and the automatic code the IDE generates just gets in the way.

So this feature request is three sub-features wrapped up in one overarching request, but all three are related. One sub-feature can't really be implemented without implementing the other two. They kind of depend on each other in a weird way.

Thomas Hruska
CubicleSoft President
http://www.cubiclesoft.com/
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feline
Whole Tomato Software

United Kingdom
19001 Posts

Posted - Aug 31 2006 :  5:25:30 PM  Show Profile  Reply with Quote
i will mention this to support. i don't have any feel for what all of this would require or entail.

with regard to alt-o, assuming the change you are talking about is made, once you have swapped to the header file if you press alt-o again what happens? the current behaviour is to take you to the cpp file, but you did not come from the cpp file. it is this "clash" that i was concerned about when i spoke about previous requests to extend how alt-o works.

zen is the art of being at one with the two'ness
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thruska
Ketchup Master

71 Posts

Posted - Sep 01 2006 :  7:00:55 PM  Show Profile  Reply with Quote
Taking me to the .cpp file is fine, IMO. I think most people would understand that a complete .rc <-> .h switch would be fairly difficult to implement. I'd expect a first pass sort of thing to be a .rc -> .h implementation and that may be all people really need. As long as both files are open, I wouldn't care too much since I tend to switch documents with mouse clicks anyway.

Thomas Hruska
CubicleSoft President
http://www.cubiclesoft.com/
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feline
Whole Tomato Software

United Kingdom
19001 Posts

Posted - Sep 03 2006 :  4:09:40 PM  Show Profile  Reply with Quote
i recently put in a bug report for the fact that alt-g no longer works when you have a .rc file open in the IDE's text editor. depending on what is in your .rc files, and how these work it is possible that alt-g will help you, once it is fixed.

case=2156

zen is the art of being at one with the two'ness
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support
Whole Tomato Software

5566 Posts

Posted - Sep 19 2006 :  01:54:29 AM  Show Profile  Reply with Quote
Fixed in build 1535.
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