[New plugin] Columns++

Alan Kilborn

It’s a user option in Notepad++ (Preferences|Searching|Replace: Don’t move to the following occurrence). I keep that option checked. Almost forgot it was there.

As did I, as I would never checkmark that option. :-)

Do you happen to know if there’s a clean way to read the current state of a user preference setting from a plugin? Many are reflected in Scintilla settings (which can be easily interrogated), but this isn’t one of them.

I don’t think there is a great way.
I suppose you could read it out of config.xml but that’s not an ideal solution.

Coises

@Alan-Kilborn said in [New plugin] Columns++:

Yes, but I noticed something new. Unlike N++'s replace, the plugin’s doesn’t do the replacement and auto-find the next match; it leaves the replacement text selected (and waits for further user action). This is okay, but it isn’t how N++ does it, so users may have concerns.

Also, something like this will keep it from ever advancing to the next match:

Continuing to press Replace in this situation merely keeps replacing the same T.

I’ve addressed both issues in version 0.2.1.7-alpha. There is now an option equivalent to the Notepad++ option Replace: Don’t move to the following occurrence which similarly defaults to unchecked. Also, when that option is checked (or when there are no more matches), the caret is placed at the end (or beginning, if searching backward) of the replacement text. The text being highlighted was causing the failure to advance.

Alan Kilborn

This post is deleted!

Coises

Version 0.3-alpha adds Convert separated values to tabs… and Convert tabs to separated values… commands. Help has been updated.

There are a surprising number of wrinkles to csv/tsv conversion, and testing has not been exhaustive of all the possibilities… so, a reminder: Be sure you’ve saved any important work before trying the new features, just in case they crash or hang Notepad++.

Thanks in advance for any critiques, suggestions or problem reports anyone can provide.

Coises

Version 0.4-alpha improves performance with Elastic tabstops enabled, especially when using monospaced fonts.

Coises

@Coises said in [New plugin] Columns++:

Version 0.4-alpha improves performance with Elastic tabstops enabled, especially when using monospaced fonts.

Version 0.4.1-alpha fixes a regression in performance of Undo/Redo with Elastic tabstops enabled that was introduced in version 0.4. Also, there is now a “quick installer” which should make it easier for users who have Notepad++ installed in the default location to install or update Columns++.

Coises

Version 0.5 adds the Calculate… command, which inserts the results of a calculation into each line of a rectangular selection.

I haven’t (yet) devised a way to make use of the new feature self-evident; you won’t be able to figure out how to write formulas without reading the documentation.

Coises

Columns++ version 0.6-alpha adds the Sort… command and dialog supporting custom sorts, including selection of locale for locale sorts, sorting within the column selection only (leaving data surrounding the selection in place), and sort keys derived from a regular expression match. Details are in the updated help.

Convert Tabs to Spaces should now be significantly faster for large files.

You can use the Quick Installer if you have Notepad++ (either 32-bit, 64-bit or both) installed in the default location(s).

Coises

A minor update from version 0.6-alpha, Columns++ version 0.6.1-alpha uses NPPM_ALLOCATEINDICATOR, introduced in Notepad++ 8.5.6, for allocating the search custom style indicator while remaining compatible with older versions. This release includes a few minor cosmetic fixes, and updated help for the Options dialog describing the custom style indicator options.

You can use the Quick Installer if you have Notepad++ (either 32-bit, 64-bit or both) installed in the default location(s).

Coises

Columns++ version 0.7-alpha enables formulas in regular expression replacements in the Search in indicated region dialog. For example, if you want to change every occurrence of “IDN-number” by adding 7 to the numeric part, you can use:

Find what: (?<=\bIDN-)\d+\b
Replace with: (?=this+7)

There are also enhancements regarding the use of time formats (days:hours:minutes:seconds) in calculations, some more flexibility for managing search regions, and other improvements. The help has been updated (in particular, see the sections on Search, Calculation, Formulas and Number formats).

There are some known problems (not new to this release) when Elastic tabstops are enabled and you make a large rectangular selection (e.g., many thousands of lines — it also matters how many tabs are on each line, regardless of whether those tabs are included in the selection). The most serious is that when switching from a tab in which the MarkdownPanel plugin shows its side panel to a tab with a large rectangular selection and Elastic tabstops enabled, Notepad++ can freeze for so long that there is no reasonable choice but to force close it. The takeaway for now is that if you choose to enable Elastic tabstops on large files (more than a few thousand lines, particularly if there are also many tabs per line), be sure to keep significant work in all tabs saved.

I haven’t delayed the release for this, because it is not new to this release… it’s just that I only discovered it yesterday. Of course, when I find a way to mitigate it, I’ll update with a new release. Right now, I do not understand what having a side panel open on a different tab should have to do with it, and I don’t know if it’s specific to the MarkdownPanel plugin. (It doesn’t happen with the built-in Document Map panel.) Because I don’t understand it, I can’t predict when I’ll have a fix.

rdipardo

@Coises said in [New plugin] Columns++:

Right now, I do not understand what having a side panel open on a different tab should have to do with it, and I don’t know if it’s specific to the MarkdownPanel plugin.

MarkdownPanel is an “eager” listener of Scintilla notifications when the panel is showing: https://github.com/mohzy83/NppMarkdownPanel/blob/833521f0e744987ebb415b6a9f5af56883cb6022/NppMarkdownPanel/MarkdownPanelController.cs#L80

My guess is that you’re flooding the main thread with SCN_UPDATEUI events, which would keep MarkdownPanel’s event loop very busy, since it doesn’t bit-mask the ScNotification.Updated field to improve the signal-to-noise ratio.

Coises

@rdipardo said in [New plugin] Columns++:

My guess is that you’re flooding the main thread with SCN_UPDATEUI events, which would keep MarkdownPanel’s event loop very busy, since it doesn’t bit-mask the ScNotification.Updated field to improve the signal-to-noise ratio.

Thanks. What threw me is that the updates are occurring in the tab being activated, and the markdown panel is for the tab being switched away from. But it appears that the panel doesn’t close until after my NPPN_BUFFERACTIVATE routine is finished. I have seen that there is no “this document is losing focus” notification for plugins, so now that I think of it, it makes sense that clean-up doesn’t always happen when it logically should. Probably the alphabetically later plugin gets the NPPN_BUFFERACTIVATE message later, so MarkdownPanel doesn’t have a chance to close its panel and stop listening for notifications until after I’ve already set my custom tabs. That gives me something to consider, though; perhaps I can defer the processing until the next SCN_UPDATEUI after the NPPN_BUFFERACTIVATE, if that doesn’t cause jumpiness or missed updates.

I’m currently attempting to project the time to completion for these potentially long-running activities and raise a progress dialog when the projected time remaining exceeds a threshold (e.g., three seconds). At least the dialog will make it possible to cancel the operation, with the understanding that visual layout and/or rectangular selection might be mangled; that’s a lot better than force-closing Notepad++.

Thanks again for the heads-up regarding MarkdownPanel.

Coises

Columns++ version 0.7.1-alpha adds a progress dialog for long-running Elastic tabstops operations. The operation can be cancelled using a link in the dialog or the Escape key. A control to set the minimum estimated time remaining to trigger the progress dialog was added to the Options dialog.

This update is recommended if you use Elastic tabstops, and especially if you use it with large files. Under some circumstances — as discussed above in this thread — a seemingly innocuous action can cause a very long delay when Elastic tabstops is enabled on a large file. This update will cause a dialog to be displayed which will make it possible to cancel the operation (rather than locking up all of Notepad++ and possibly leading the user to force-close it).

Thomas Knoefel

@Coises I installed your plugin for the first time and was able to display the progress bar successfully. It works great. However, I encountered some difficulties with its usage in certain areas. How can I replace a string with the same string combined with the number of its occurrence?
Given that the documentation is quite theoretical, perhaps some simple examples or a hands-on section would help with the initial testing steps.

Coises

@Thomas-Knoefel said in [New plugin] Columns++:

@Coises I installed your plugin for the first time and was able to display the progress bar successfully. It works great.

Thanks for giving it a try!

How can I replace a string with the same string combined with the number of its occurrence?

If you wanted to replace, say, Definition: with Definition-n: where n is 1 for the first replacement and increments by 1 each time, you’d use:

Find what: Definition:
Replace with: Definition-(?=match):

If you had something more complicated, like replacing Define(word, definition) with Define(word, n, definition) where n is 10 for the first replacement and increments by 5 each time, you’d use:

Find what: (Define$\w+,)([^)]*$)
Replace with: \1 (?=match*5+5),\2

You use (?=…) to enclose a formula, which gets substituted into the replacement string. In the formula, you use line for the line number, match for the match number, this for the numeric value of the text the regular expression matched, and reg(n) for the numeric value of the text the nth capture group matched. There are more complicated possibilities, but those are the main ones. The formula is written like a typical computer language mathematical expression: +, -, *, / for arithmetic, parentheses for grouping, and so on.

Given that the documentation is quite theoretical, perhaps some simple examples or a hands-on section would help with the initial testing steps.

That is a good idea. I can’t promise when I’ll get it done, but adding an “Examples” or a “How do I…?” section to the help sounds worthwhile. Thank you for the suggestion.

Coises

Columns++ version 0.7.2-alpha replaces a Windows API that is only available in Windows 10 and later with one that is available from Vista on.

If you’re running a version of Windows older than Windows 10, 0.7.1 won’t load; use 0.7.2. If you’re running Windows 10 or later, there should be no discernible difference.

Thomas Knoefel

@Coises said in [New plugin] Columns++:

If you wanted to replace, say, Definition: with Definition-n: where n is 1 for the first replacement and increments by 1 each time, you’d use:

Find what: Definition:
Replace with: Definition-(?=match):

I tried it in the “Search in indicated region” window. It is replacing the strings for me visually with “Definition-(?=match):”. It’s somehow not resolving the instruction.
Besides, when I click on “Undo”, it performs two undos, so I cannot go back to the previous “Definition:” string list.

Coises

@Thomas-Knoefel said in [New plugin] Columns++:

I tried it in the “Search in indicated region” window. It is replacing the strings for me visually with “Definition-(?=match):”. It’s somehow not resolving the instruction.

Almost certainly this is because I left out an important instruction: Regular expression must be selected in the Search Mode box. Formula replacements are only done in regular expression mode.

Besides, when I click on “Undo”, it performs two undos, so I cannot go back to the previous “Definition:” string list.

I can’t reproduce this, but I might not understand. You’re finding that after doing an action in Search in indicated region, using the Notepad++ Undo command reverts both the action from the dialog and whatever action you did previously?

Does this happen regardless of how you do the Undo command (toolbar, menu, Ctrl+Z) and regardless of whether the dialog is still open?

Thomas Knoefel

@Coises said in [New plugin] Columns++:

I left out an important instruction: Regular expression must be selected in the Search Mode box.

… yeah, with that it works!

@Coises said in [New plugin] Columns++:

You’re finding that after doing an action in Search in indicated region, using the Notepad++ Undo command reverts both the action from the dialog and whatever action you did previously?

That’s correct. It will jump back as if I had hit “Undo” twice. I suggest moving further discussions of these smaller issues to your Plugin’s issue list to avoid cluttering this thread.

PS: I did some additional tests and it played out that’s all fine with your Plugin. It was a misbehavior of N++. A new restart fixed the problem.

Coises

Columns++ version 0.7.3-alpha does not introduce any new features, but it fixes a couple potentially annoying misbehaviors:

Improved exception handling: Exceptions from the Scintilla C++ interface will now be passed to Notepad++ in a way that allows it to report them as such, and uncleared error status codes from outside Columns++ will no longer cause exceptions in Columns++.
An error in handling parentheses in regular expression replacement strings was fixed.
A design flaw that could cause formula substitutions in regular expression replacement strings to be misinterpreted as part of a special sequence (such as a $n capture group reference) was fixed.