Question about cursor position

John Thompson

Won’t be hard to figure out here, I guess I’d be considered a newbie. I’ve been using notepad++ for many years, but i never really dug in to get it set up the way i want.

Using this to write some jQuery functions and I think there’s a way to do this but not sure.

The smart editor adds end tags automatically right? so if I type a parenthesis open it automatically closes it. The problem is, it always puts the cursor between the two. more often than not I want the cursor to be after the closing tag. I know this might seem counter intuitive but for me it helps. For instance ‘function(’ would be ‘function()’ but my cursor would be between them. i want it to drop the closing tag before the cursor position

Is there a way to configure this? I didn’t see it in the settings.

Claudia Frank

Hello John-Thompson,

afaik it can’t be configured through settings. What I can propose is a python script solution,
which means you need to install the python script plugin to make this work.
What needs to be done would be

disable the autocompletion function from npp
write a script which listens for charadded event , do the completion and put the cursor behind the added char.

Let me know if you want to go this way.

Cheers
Claudia

John Thompson

yes that makes sense. I would be happy to do that, unfortunately I know nothing about python. of course I could install the plugin

just to explain a little more, I know this sounds counter intuitive, but my problem is I can’t seem to teach my brain to know I’m between them, so since I don’t always watch as I type I unconsciously hit the back arrow once when i open a tag. it’s a habit formed from a different editor I used to use that did just what I’m proposing

Claudia Frank

Hello John-Thompson,

what needs to be done first is described here.

The python script would be

dict_complete_char = {'(':')','{':'}'}

def callback_CHARADDED(args):

    if(args.has_key('ch')):
        if dict_complete_char.get(chr(args['ch'])):
            editor.addText(dict_complete_char.get(chr(args['ch'])))
     
    
editor.clearCallbacks([SCINTILLANOTIFICATION.CHARADDED]);
editor.callback(callback_CHARADDED, [SCINTILLANOTIFICATION.CHARADDED])

As said, disable auto insert by unchecking everything from
Settings->Preferences->Auto-Completion -> Auto-Insert section
like here.

Once you saved the script with a meanigful name, restart npp.

Open a file and click Plugins->PythonScript->Scripts->NAME_OF_SCRIPT
now if you type a ( it should automatically add the ) char and the cursor is behind the ) char.

Current script supports ( and { chars if you want to add additional pairs you need to modify the line

dict_complete_char = {'(':')','{':'}'}

e.g. you want to have < auto closed as well then you add it like

dict_complete_char = {'(':')','{':'}','<':'>'}

and so on.

If you are fine with it and you a tired of running the script everytime you start npp,
we can modify the startup.py, which is part of the python script pluign installation, to start
this script automatically.

Cheers
Claudia

John Thompson

Wow i didn’t expect you to write it for me, i figured I could research python a little. i installed the plugin after your reply so i’ll do this in the morning.

Thank you SO much!

Claudia Frank

sorry for spoiling the party ;-)

Cheers
Claudia

John Thompson

Oh you didn’t spoil anything, you saved me a lot of time. lol i greatly appreciate it