New version 1.5 for Elastic Tabstops

[mariusv-github]

I released yesterday a new version 1.5 of Elastic Tabstops supporting the major breaking change introduced in 8.3.x and deprecation from 8.4.7 (https://github.com/npp-plugins/plugintemplate/releases/tag/v4.3 ).

This new version 1.5 of Elastic Tabstops is completely rewritten (from Justin Dailey version), optimized and provides many new features:

• New settings architecture: default setting and individual settings.
• New configuration file format, INI-compatible, with optional individual sections for edited files.
• Default settings partially compatible with the old version.
• Global remember option to remember setting option for enabled files.
• Reset settings option to clean and reset the options INI file.
• New, consistent behavior of elastic tab-stops using two types of working range: current selection or the whole file.
• User choice between two computing strategy : global (same through the whole file) or local (old version behavior) tab-stops.
• Efficient and optimized code to find and replace elastic tab-stops with spaces or spaces with tabs (selection or whole file).
• Completely rewritten code to support new Scintilla 2GB+ interface.
• Integrated quick help.

Downloads: https://github.com/mariusv-github/ElasticTabstops/releases
Elastic Tabstops 1.5.0 x64 version: https://github.com/mariusv-github/ElasticTabstops/releases/download/v1.5.0/ElasticTabstops_x64_1.5.0.zip
Elastic Tabstops 1.5.0 x86 version: https://github.com/mariusv-github/ElasticTabstops/releases/download/v1.5.0/ElasticTabstops_x86_1.5.0.zip

[Alan Kilborn]

@mariusv-github said in New version 1.5 for Elastic Tabstops:

This new version 1.5 of Elastic Tabstops is completely rewritten (from Justin Dailey version)

Did you obtain permission from the original author to do this?
That is, to permanently take over development of the plugin?

If not, the courtesy (and sanity) demands that you give your version of the plugin a different name than the original.

Besides general confusion, using the same name for two plugins pretty much guarantees that one will never be included in the Notepad++ Plugins Admin list of plugins.

[mariusv-github]

@Alan-Kilborn
Hi Alain, I will try to be clear with you:

That is, to permanently take over development of the plugin?

First, I do not “permanently take over the development of the plugin” because I not have the time to do this (and I don’t ask for).

I used Notepad++ from beginning and I used many times Elastic Tabstops. But the last release of ET was back in 2019 while NPP still advance.

Many users (like me, my students or any other users like Steve Brown https://community.notepad-plus-plus.org/topic/23037/elastic-tabstops-plugin-disappeared) need a version working with the actual version of NPP, while the last version released by Justin was blacklisted in NPP plugin list for any version higher than 8.3.

So, I took one week of my time (and unfortunately I do not have much time) to rewrite, correct bugs and enhance the last version written by Justin and I did it just for me and my students. But as it works pretty well I decided to share it will all NPP users who need it.

If not, the courtesy (and sanity) demands that you give your version of the plugin a different name than the original.

This plugin provides the same main function (Elastic Tabstops) with some enhancements but I do not intent to add any other new functions, I think this is a stable version, so from my point of view there will be no other “permanently” “development of the plugin”. I do not see any reason to multiply the number of plugins like “Elastic Tabstops Bis” or “Elastic Tabstops Enhanced”, this can be confusing for normal users. In my case, we continue to use in our classrooms the version 1.3 with old NPP versions like 7.5 and the new version 1.5 with the current version of NPP (hundreds PC in each category).

Besides general confusion, using the same name for two plugins pretty much guarantees that one will never be included in the Notepad++ Plugins Admin list of plugins.

While Justin will not release a new version (and I think he haven’t much time, as me), users can use this version 1.5 and I hope having some little time to support any eventual bugs. If Justin will find some time to release a new version he is welcome.

The new format of nppPluginList.json and nppPluginList.dll is quite clever: “old-versions-compatibility” was added for this case.

[Alan Kilborn]

@dail

What are your thoughts on this?
I think if @mariusv-github simply gives it a new name (despite his apparent reluctance to do so), all concerns disappear.

---

@mariusv-github

I do not see any reason to multiply the number of plugins like “Elastic Tabstops Bis” or “Elastic Tabstops Enhanced”, this can be confusing for normal users.

Obtaining a plugin of identical name but different version number from two different sites is arguably just as confusing.

[dail]

@Alan-Kilborn

See discussion here: https://github.com/notepad-plus-plus/nppPluginList/pull/536

[Alan Kilborn]

@dail

Ok, it sounds like we have a new “owner” for the plugin.
Congratulations @mariusv-github !

My goal here was to just avoid confusion.
Open source and forking projects (and correct licensing of course) and making a different version is all great stuff…but people often miss the point that continuing to call your derivative work by the same name as the original…is not a good idea.
So it is good that in this case we have a clean handover and only one version of the plugin going forward.

[dail]

@Alan-Kilborn said in New version 1.5 for Elastic Tabstops:

Ok, it sounds like we have a new “owner” for the plugin.

That’s what I’m trying to agree on for sure and decide what makes sense (different repo or just multiple people maintain the same one).

[dail]

FYI I’ve archived my ElasticTabstops repo and redirected users to @mariusv-github’s repo.

[Marko Skvarča]

Hello

Activating the addon for each new file opened or created is very time-consuming. Can you add option thaht permenantly turns addon on as was in previus versions 1.3 and 1.3.x.

[Alan Kilborn]

@Marko-Skvarča said in New version 1.5 for Elastic Tabstops:

Activating the addon for each new file opened or created is very time-consuming. Can you add option thaht permenantly turns addon on as was in previus versions 1.3 and 1.3.x.

Probably should open an “issue” at @mariusv-github 's site.

EDIT: Perhaps already did that? See HERE . Probably should NOT have added this part: solution needet; quickly;

[Marko Skvarča]

Yeah. The problem is criticall.

[PeterJones]

@Marko-Skvarča said in New version 1.5 for Elastic Tabstops:

Yeah. The problem is criticall.

That is unfortunate.

None of the plugin authors I know are paid to maintain their plugins. So they have a full time job, and plugin maintenance is a volunteer side project that they work on in their free time. This means that new feature requests don’t necessarily get implemented immediately (if ever). And demanding that they accommodate you immediately is often a way to get your request put to the end of the queue (or immediately rejected).

So, while the request has been made, you need to understand that it might be days, weeks, months, years, or never before your requested feature is implemented – that is the nature of free, open-source software development.

[mariusv-github]

@Marko-Skvarča
Marko, what you asked is not a critical problem.

The only problem is that you do not read the help file. I written the help file for someone like you who want to change the default settings!
And I hope you have 5 minutes to read it and modify your setting as you wish.

The answer you need is on line 73 of ET help: if you want to active all files by default all you have to do is changing the extensions option, save options (and then eventually restart your NPP):

extensions=*

BUT (line 44 of help file): we recommend to not enable by default all files extensions (with extensions=* ), and to enable manually each opened file where you really need elastic tabs. That’s all…

@PeterJones
Thank you, I agree with you at 1000%

[Alan Kilborn]

@mariusv-github

Users!
Welcome to the world of (free) development!