Four Js Development Tools Forum

Hi,
 
I’ve been using Studio 2.32.24 for a some weeks now and starting to like it – I don’t often go back to my old editor. It has come a long way and is very usable now – great job Fourjs.

Now however, there some things I'd still like to be able do that I don’t think are present in the product (?), some are just to make life simpler and quicker for me. 

So here are some feature requests, in no particular order (with the vote count from our 4 developers, including myself, at the end – feel free to submit your own voting favouritism to see if it gets actioned sooner).
 

1. Be able to delete the word forward of the cursor (and assign an accelerator to it).  All the options I can see delete either the word before the cursor, or the word you are in, or the word forward of the cursor but also removing previous white space including line breaks, etc. (Votes: 1)
 
2. Create my own recorded macros to perform operations on either whole file, rest of file or selected text. Would be bonus if I could edit a recorded macro to tweak it, instead of having to record an entirely new macro if minor changes. (Votes: 4)
 
3. Be able to do a search and replace of a ‘selection’ when using 'column selection’ method (alt + mouse drag). At the moment it behaves as though you highlighted entire lines and changes everything matching on the line, even though you have only selected a portion from a number of lines. (Votes: 2)
 
4. Highlight database table names and database column names (as known by the schema) in a different colour from the variable names colour. (Votes: 3)
 
5. Bookmarks ‘next’ and ‘previous’ seem to be based on creation order of the bookmark, not line number order. Can we have an option to go in line number order when selecting next or previous bookmark. (Votes: 4)
 
6. Can bookmarks have a setting to choose to keep the scope of bookmarks to the current file? As in each file keeps its own set of bookmarks. This would help me as bookmarks seem to be remembered, even in files that you have closed. So, when going next/previous bookmark one can suddenly find a file closed some days previously suddenly opened again.  (Votes: 4)

7. Be able to open more than one project at the same time - build functions, etc to work on only the 'current' project that has focus. [Other work around to this might be ‘Bz13072 – Start multiple instances of Genero Studio’]. Reason for more than one project – I may be working on 'project A' when user has problem in 'project B', I have to close all of my work in 'project A' to open 'project B' to see what is wrong… rather painful so tend to jump back to the old editor. (Votes: 4)
 
8. When you close a file in Studio, have the editor return focus to the last file viewed, not the next file in the list. I often open a file to refer to a functions detail or view error lines, when I close that file I would like to be back where I was before I opened it. (Votes: 2)

9.  Have the 'open file' dialog default its current directory to that of the file that currently has focus in the editor. (Votes: 4)

AND some report writer related requests:

10. In report writer - be able to add a 'comment' to any field that has properties, including the groups and page headers, etc. This is to make it clearer why things have been done in a certain way to other developers, and myself if I have to edit a report again in couple of years. (Votes: 4)

11.  I would like to be able to search the ‘Data View’.   In some reports my Data View is so long when expanded that I have to click the scrollbar 5 times to view it all.  When I want to drag a form field from the Data View to the Structure View it can be time consuming to find the field. (Votes: 4)

12. Under the 'report structure' view I would have liked a button to "expand all", as in click it and should be able to see everything without having to click all those little arrows to open up the structure view. Fully expanded is how I end up using it most of the time, but when first opened (and other times?) all you see is the top node. (Votes: 3)

13. I would like it if ‘Foreach’ and ‘For’ statements could be named.  It would make it easier to insert form fields into the correct position in the Structure View.  See this image of a current reports layout - not easy to see which foreach we are dealing with. See attached image 'Report_structure.jpg' for example of why this would be useful. (Votes: 2)
 
14. Make the visual representation when using 'rest' to fill horizontally across the page actually look somewhat like it does when printed - currently get a one or two column representation that then goes down the page! See attached image 'rest.jpg' (Votes: 4)


AND while in a voting mood the following requests have numbers, but maybe more interest will get them actioned sooner?

A.   #20296 for adding the version into the Windows Title Bar - for when running more than one version of Studio. (Votes: 3)

B.   #13072 - Start multiple instances of Genero Studio (Votes: 4)

C.   #20419 PictureFlow: Jumping directly to the concerned pic when setting the current row – currently is strange flip through intervening pictures, when large number of rows just flips blank pages in time consuming fashion. (Votes: 4)

D.   #20400 - Having a keystroke to switch between different panels of the workspace – like from search pane to search results to code window to document errors, etc. (Votes: 2)


Thanks for your time – if you’d like any of these features then please put your 2 cents in


Regards,
  Bryce Stenberg
  Harness Racing New Zealand Inc.

Thought someone from Europe office might have commented, but my thoughts ...

1. Interesting because in MS Word, Control-Delete does what you are looking for, but we have Control-Delete doing delete of line.  Also I thought typing space, Ctrl+D might do what you were after but it has to be space, right, Ctrl+D

2. Pass

3. That looks like a bug, I'll report

4. Are you meaning in a LIKE statement, or when used in an static SQL statement?

5,6. Thats looks like a bug. I'll report

7. Don't forget the recent projects, recent files options on the Welcome Page and in the File Menu.  For the problem you've described, I'd open project B, select No to close files in current project, resolve the issue in project B, use the recent projects option in the Welcome Page to return to project A

8. That file is one-click away in the recent files list and should be at the top.  What would you expect if the thing you did in the last file was to close it?

9. I recall there was some internal discussion a while back about what the current directory should be.  I'm pretty sure we got it changed to default to the current project directory, as opposed to the last directory which could be anywhere which was proving annoying particularly when switching between projects.  We are probably never going to please everyone so it should proably be something that ought to be configurable in the preferences.

10. There is an existing feature request for this Bz15125.  It has been suggested for form designer as well.  As you can tell by the number, it isn't a recent request.  I'm not sure why it hasn't been implemented by now, to me it is an obvious thing that should be there and could be implemented relatively easy.

11. Are you using the icon (downwards arrow) that allows you to change the order the items appear in the dataview?

12. You already have a request Bz20307 in for that.

13. I suspect this would require a change on the 4gl side of things e.g. FOR x = 1 TO 12 NAME="Month Loop"

14. It  looks like it could be improved.

>>4. Highlight database table names and database column names (as known by the schema) in a different colour from the variable names colour. (Votes: 3)
>4. Are you meaning in a LIKE statement, or when used in an static SQL statement?

I'm actually meaning anywhere it occurs in the code, whether that be a LIKE statement, an SQL statement or just being used as variables in assignments or calculations, etc.  eg.  define racehdr like racehdr.*       let racehdr.rh_race_no = 5    --> I would like all the occurrences of word 'racehdr' (and column 'rh_race_no') to be different colour from other variables.

>7. Don't forget the recent projects, recent files options on the Welcome Page and in the File Menu.  For the problem you've described, I'd open project B, select No to close files in current project, resolve the issue in project B, use the recent projects option in the Welcome Page to return to project A

Thanks Reuben - I have tried and seems to be workable.


>>8. When you close a file in Studio, have the editor return focus to the last file viewed, not the next file in the list. I often open a file to refer to a functions detail or view error lines, when I close that file I would like to be back where I was before I opened it. (Votes: 2)
>8. That file is one-click away in the recent files list and should be at the top.  What would you expect if the thing you did in the last file was to close it?

I know it is a click or couple of key presses away, it just bugs me having to do that to get back to where I was. If the last file was closed then there would have been another file that had the current focus before I opened then closed the new one.

>9. I recall there was some internal discussion a while back about what the current directory should be.  I'm pretty sure we got it changed to default to the current project directory, as opposed to the last directory which could be anywhere which was proving annoying particularly when switching between projects.  We are probably never going to please everyone so it should proably be something that ought to be configurable in the preferences.

Hear, hear. Configurable please.

>>10. In report writer - be able to add a 'comment' to any field that has properties....
>10. There is an existing feature request for this Bz15125.  ...., it isn't a recent request....

I'm still waiting on old request Fz#2583 / Bz11529 from Nov.2008 (Need to input and display HH:MM or HH12:MM:SS values in TIMEEDIT fields). Must be hard to assign priorities to everything and keep everyone happy.

>>11.  I would like to be able to search the ‘Data View’. ....
>11. Are you using the icon (downwards arrow) that allows you to change the order the items appear in the dataview?

The down arrow is fine if you only have a couple of groups, but once you have five or ten groups with multiple foreach statements within each it gets harder to find what you want, even if they are ordered within these.

>>13. I would like it if ‘Foreach’ and ‘For’ statements could be named....
>13. I suspect this would require a change on the 4gl side of things e.g. FOR x = 1 TO 12 NAME="Month Loop"

Yes please :)   Foreach's already have unique names - they could get used in report writer?


Thanks for your views and feedback Reuben.

Regards, Bryce Stenberg.