Left-justified comment symbols

Michael Mannion

Is there a shortcut or setting to comment a block of code, while keeping all of the comment symbols in the left-most column?

The current CTRL+K and CTRL+Q behavior produces output like this:

Current behavior

What I want is this:

Desired behavior

(Sorry for the cumbersome links; I can’t figure out how to embed code that preserves indents, nor to make the images show up directly.)

Thank you in advance!

rinku singh

Alan Kilborn

@Michael-Mannion

Ugh. So is this the text you start with?

SELECT
     column_1
FROM
     foo
WHERE
      column2 = 99
;

BTW, in the post composer window, I make that (black code box) happen with this:

Imgur

You can make this image of yours:

Imgur

appear like that if you compose it like this: ![Imgur](https://i.imgur.com/csgV3Xl.jpg)

Michael Mannion

Yes, that’s the text I start with. It’s a contrived example, but it has some indents, which is the salient point.

I figured out that I can use Replace with a regular expression and the start-of-line anchor, like this:

link text

It works, but it’s several clicks. Maybe I need to look into making an npp macro; I have one for vim, but am only slowly transitioning my years of customization in vim over to npp.

Just out of curiosity:

Why the “Ugh”?

I admit I use newlines and indents way more than most developers. Having each column in a SELECT or parameter in a function on its own line, for example, makes things so much easier for me to read - and easier to edit during refactoring. Maybe I’ve just trained myself to think that way; anyway, it is what it is at this point.

Similarly, I can’t imagine why anyone would want their per-line comments indented all over creation. The CTRL+K/Q results are so distracting to me that I have a hard time imagining that anyone is able to glace at that, grasp it, and move on. Syntax highlighting mitigates the problem to the point that it’s probably a non-issue. And, again, I’m willing to admit that I’m the oddball.

I’m not trying to hijack my own thread, but I’m interested in your thoughts. I’m not a full-time developer, though most of my work (DBA / system architect) still involves writing code. I’m always keen to learn from people who code full time.

Lastly, thanks to Gurikbal & you for helping me with the composer syntax.

Is there a syntax doc page for this composer?

I looked around when I was writing the OP, but didn’t find a help page. Maybe I just missed it. Anyway, I appreciate you both following up. (BTW, I tried to fix the OP to show the images, but got an error that I can only edit within 180 seconds of posting. Stackexchange this ain’t…)

Alan Kilborn

@Michael-Mannion said:

Why the “Ugh”?

That was because if someone wanted to retry your contrived example as-is, they’d have to retype it instead of just swiping it from your posting. Obviously, I went to the trouble to retype it. Ugh. :)

I’m willing to admit that I’m the oddball.

Maybe I’m odd too because I’ve never really understood how those “comment” commands work…why they do what they do. If I did, I certainly would have commented on that aspect in my first reply.

I do a lot of Python, so it is just too easy for me to take this block of code, for ex.:

FindWindow = ctypes.windll.user32.FindWindowW
GetWindowText = ctypes.windll.user32.GetWindowTextW
GetWindowTextLength = ctypes.windll.user32.GetWindowTextLengthW
SendMessage = ctypes.windll.user32.SendMessageW
EnumChildWindows = ctypes.windll.user32.EnumChildWindows
GetClassName = ctypes.windll.user32.GetClassNameW
curr_class = ctypes.create_unicode_buffer(256)

to this:

'''
FindWindow = ctypes.windll.user32.FindWindowW
GetWindowText = ctypes.windll.user32.GetWindowTextW
GetWindowTextLength = ctypes.windll.user32.GetWindowTextLengthW
SendMessage = ctypes.windll.user32.SendMessageW
EnumChildWindows = ctypes.windll.user32.EnumChildWindows
GetClassName = ctypes.windll.user32.GetClassNameW
curr_class = ctypes.create_unicode_buffer(256)
'''

with just a quick manual adjustment. (Interesting, I never noticed that three ' will be changed to TWO in the Compose window, but will still appear as three in the Preview window).

Is there a syntax doc page for this composer?

Yes, see the little ? by the “COMPOSE” text? Click on it…what you get ain’t great, but…

I can only edit within 180 seconds of posting. Stackexchange this ain’t

It ain’t stackoverflow either. Personally, I don’t like those sites where a lot of editing is allowed after the fact. Things can get out of date and hard to follow fast that way. Here, if you make a mistake, you just have to correct yourself later.

Alan Kilborn

@Michael-Mannion said:

Maybe I need to look into making an npp macro;

You can certainly macro-ize that replace op easily enough. See the Macro menu. Your macro would consist of one thing: A Replace All button press.