Shortcut or menu path to "Rotate to right/left"

VTGroupGitHub

I use the “Customize Toolbar” plugin to add favorite commands to the toolbar. One button I’ve added is to split my windows. The way the plugin works, I define the N++ menu path to the command in the Customize Toolbar config file, along with a 16x16 icon to show on the toolbar i.e. “View,Move/Clone Current Document,Move to Other View,split.bmp”.

I now want to add a button to rotate the view between horizontal and vertical. Unfortunately, those commands (“Rotate to right” and “Rotate to left”) are on the window splitter/grabber, not in the main menu structure. Is there a menu path or keyboard shortcut to those two rotate commands that I’ve missed somewhere?

I’m obviously looking for a single-click rotate, instead of a right-click on the grabber followed by a left click on the rotate command.

PeterJones

Unfortunately, looking at the source code, it appears that the splitter-container hardcode-generates those commands, and I don’t think even the plugins communication system has any messages which talk directly with the SplitterContainer’s object. I couldn’t find any menu command ID’s which affect that either (though the move and clone to other view are there).

Without a command ID or main menu position, you cannot record it in a macro. Without a published message ID, you’re not supposed to access those internal messages to manipulate it via a plugin.

However, a clever PythonScript programmer could probably search through the child-windows of the main Notepad++ GUI window, until they found the SplitterContainer object’s HWND, and then SendMessage to that HWND to send a WM_COMMAND message to the SplitterContainer, with the lword as the left and right constants. Not that I would recommend someone do that 😉, since sending unpublished messages to internal hwnd objects is not guaranteed to stay consistently working from one version to the next (which is a risk you take by going beyond the published API).

VTGroupGitHub

Very much appreciated. It’s obviously not a major issue, but I wanted to make sure I wasn’t missing something obvious.

Ekopalypse

A python script might look like this

import ctypes

ROTATION_A_LEFT = 2000
ROTATION_A_RIGHT = 2001
WM_COMMAND = 0x111

def isSingleView():
    npp_hwnd = ctypes.windll.user32.FindWindowW(u'Notepad++', None)
    splitter_hwnd = ctypes.windll.user32.FindWindowExW(npp_hwnd, None, u'splitterContainer', None)
    return (not bool(ctypes.windll.user32.IsWindowVisible(splitter_hwnd)), splitter_hwnd)

def LOWORD(value): return value & 0xFFFF

single_view, hwnd = isSingleView()
if not single_view:
    ctypes.windll.user32.SendMessageW(hwnd, WM_COMMAND, LOWORD(ROTATION_A_LEFT), 0)

@PeterJones - thx - explanation was perfect - I did not even had to check the source :-)

VTGroupGitHub

Thank you! I’ve not done Python before, but with such clear code, I figured I’d give it a shot. :) Your code worked perfectly.

Unfortunately, while I can run the script from the menu, when I try to assign it to “Customize Toolbar”, nothing happens when I press the new toolbar button. In case anyone sees something wrong with my last config line below, or knows something about a step I’m missing, I thought I’d post. All of the other commands below work as expected, it’s just that Rotate does nothing when the button is pressed.

Edit,Line Operations,Sort Lines Lexicographically Ascending,sort.bmp
Edit,Line Operations,Remove Consecutive Duplicate Lines,dedup.bmp
Plugins,XML Tools,Pretty print (XML only),xml.bmp
Plugins,JSON Viewer,Format JSON,json.bmp
View,Move/Clone Current Document,Move to Other View,split.bmp
Plugins,Python Script,Scripts,Rotate,rotate.bmp

Thank you again.

PeterJones

@VTGroupGitHub ,

I don’t use Customize Toolbar. However, something does jump out at me: the first 5 rows of your config have 3 levels of menu (main menu, submenu, command) followed by the icon/bmp; the last has 4 levels of menu (main, submenu, submenu, command) before the icon/bmp. It may be that Customize Toolbar cannot go that deep (I don’t know).

PythonScript plugin has Plugins > Python Script > Configuration…, which allows you to add a script into the Menu Items list on the left – this is a prerequisite to configuring a Settings > Shortcut Mapper keyboard shortcut to a script, and it might also be necessary for the script to work with Customize Toolbar as well – because if the Rotate script were in the left-hand list, it would show up in Plugins > Python Script > Rotate – which could be accessed using:

Plugins,Python Script,Rotate,rotate.bmp

… which then has the same number of levels as your other commands.

Aside from that, there’s also the right-hand pane in the same Configuration… dialog, which allows you do add a PythonScript script directly into the toolbar (complete with icon) without needing the Customize Toolbar plugin at all.

VTGroupGitHub

I don’t know how to explain what happened, but I restarted N++ one more time, and now the button works as expected.
Very odd, as I’d done that a couple of times already. Thanks to everyone for the assistance!

And regarding the same number of levels comment, it appears that tool we’re using to talk decides that back-to-back commas should be displayed as a single comma. In all but the last config line above, there are 2 commas before the .bmp. The second comma just didn’t render in my post.

PeterJones

@VTGroupGitHub said in Shortcut or menu path to "Rotate to right/left":

tool we’re using to talk decides

Yes, it uses markdown format – though I’ve never seen it eat commas before; I guess it depends on what other markdown you’re using.

If you ever want text to come through literally, the best is to highlight the literal then press the </> toolbar button at the top:

Edit,Line Operations,Sort Lines Lexicographically Ascending,,sort.bmp

Ekopalypse

What I think the problem was is that a newly created script hasn’t been assigned
an ID known to npp. This is normally done during plugin initialization where npp
asks for functions to register, hence the restart of npp solved it.

deleelee

@Ekopalypse said in Shortcut or menu path to "Rotate to right/left":

A python script might look like this

import ctypes

ROTATION_A_LEFT = 2000
ROTATION_A_RIGHT = 2001
WM_COMMAND = 0x111

def isSingleView():
    npp_hwnd = ctypes.windll.user32.FindWindowW(u'Notepad++', None)
    splitter_hwnd = ctypes.windll.user32.FindWindowExW(npp_hwnd, None, u'splitterContainer', None)
    return (not bool(ctypes.windll.user32.IsWindowVisible(splitter_hwnd)), splitter_hwnd)

def LOWORD(value): return value & 0xFFFF

single_view, hwnd = isSingleView()
if not single_view:
    ctypes.windll.user32.SendMessageW(hwnd, WM_COMMAND, LOWORD(ROTATION_A_LEFT), 0)

A few years old but it still works!!! I’ve been wanting a toolbar button for rotating the panes and this is great. Do you know if it would be possible to have the script toggle so that it rotates one way on the first click and back the other way on the next click? As it is, the first click rotates in the desired direction but the next click rotates once more in the same direction which doesn’t return the panes to the order they were in, so it requires three clicks to do that. Obviously, I could just have two buttons, one for right and one for left, but it would save toolbar space if they were combined into one button.

Ekopalypse

@deleelee

Oh dear … When I see this old code, what was I thinking? :-D

let’s create a new property of the notepad class and store the state there.

import ctypes

ROTATION_A_LEFT = 2000
ROTATION_A_RIGHT = 2001
WM_COMMAND = 0x111

def isSingleView():
    npp_hwnd = ctypes.windll.user32.FindWindowW(u'Notepad++', None)
    splitter_hwnd = ctypes.windll.user32.FindWindowExW(npp_hwnd, None, u'splitterContainer', None)
    return (not bool(ctypes.windll.user32.IsWindowVisible(splitter_hwnd)), splitter_hwnd)

def LOWORD(value): return value & 0xFFFF

if not hasattr(notepad, "rotateSplitView"):
    notepad.rotateSplitView = False

single_view, hwnd = isSingleView()
if not single_view:
    if notepad.rotateSplitView:
        ctypes.windll.user32.SendMessageW(hwnd, WM_COMMAND, LOWORD(ROTATION_A_LEFT), 0)
    else:
        ctypes.windll.user32.SendMessageW(hwnd, WM_COMMAND, LOWORD(ROTATION_A_RIGHT), 0)
    notepad.rotateSplitView = not notepad.rotateSplitView

But nowadays I guess I would do something like

from ctypes import wintypes, WinDLL
from Npp import notepad

class ViewRotator():
    def __init__(self):
        self.LOWORD_LEFT = 2000
        self.LOWORD_RIGHT = 2001
        self.WM_COMMAND = 0x111
        self.toggle_rotating_direction = False
        self.npp_hwnd = WinDLL("user32").FindWindowW(u'Notepad++', None)
        self.splitter_hwnd = WinDLL("user32").FindWindowExW(self.npp_hwnd, None, u'splitterContainer', None)
        self.send = WinDLL("user32").SendMessageW
        self.send.argtypes = [wintypes.HWND, wintypes.UINT, wintypes.WPARAM, wintypes.LPARAM]
        self.send.resttype = wintypes.LPARAM  # LRESULT

    def isSingleView(self):
        return not bool(WinDLL("user32").IsWindowVisible(self.splitter_hwnd))

    def rotate(self):
        if not self.isSingleView():
            if self.toggle_rotating_direction:
                self.send(self.splitter_hwnd, self.WM_COMMAND, self.LOWORD_RIGHT, 0)
            else:
                self.send(self.splitter_hwnd, self.WM_COMMAND, self.LOWORD_LEFT, 0)
            self.toggle_rotating_direction = not self.toggle_rotating_direction


if not hasattr(notepad, "rotateSplitView"):
    notepad.rotateSplitView = ViewRotator().rotate

notepad.rotateSplitView()

Alan Kilborn

@Ekopalypse

self.send.resttype = wintypes.LPARAM # LRESULT

I think you mean restype

def isSingleView(self):
…
if not self.isSingleView():

Any reason not to use notepad.isSingleView() instead of writing a custom function?

Oh dear … When I see this old code, what was I thinking? :-D

Yep, we all feel this way about our own old code. :-)
It’s because we’ve learned so much since the time of original writing.

Ekopalypse

@Alan-Kilborn said in Shortcut or menu path to "Rotate to right/left":

I think you mean restype

Yes, I do, thanks for pointing that out.

Any reason not to use notepad.isSingleView() instead of writing a custom function?

No, I just hadn’t thought about whether there were any builtin methods.

Yep, we all feel this way about our own old code. :-)
It’s because we’ve learned so much since the time of original writing.

… and still learning … :-D that’s the beauty of this work, at least for me.

Ekopalypse

@deleelee

UPDATED VERSION

from ctypes import wintypes, WinDLL
from Npp import notepad

class ViewRotator():
    def __init__(self):
        self.LOWORD_LEFT = 2000
        self.LOWORD_RIGHT = 2001
        self.WM_COMMAND = 0x111
        self.toggle_rotating_direction = False
        self.npp_hwnd = WinDLL("user32").FindWindowW(u'Notepad++', None)
        self.splitter_hwnd = WinDLL("user32").FindWindowExW(self.npp_hwnd, None, u'splitterContainer', None)
        self.send = WinDLL("user32").SendMessageW
        self.send.argtypes = [wintypes.HWND, wintypes.UINT, wintypes.WPARAM, wintypes.LPARAM]
        self.send.restype = wintypes.LPARAM  # LRESULT

    def rotate(self):
        if not notepad.isSingleView():
            if self.toggle_rotating_direction:
                self.send(self.splitter_hwnd, self.WM_COMMAND, self.LOWORD_RIGHT, 0)
            else:
                self.send(self.splitter_hwnd, self.WM_COMMAND, self.LOWORD_LEFT, 0)
            self.toggle_rotating_direction = not self.toggle_rotating_direction


if not hasattr(notepad, "rotateSplitView"):
    notepad.rotateSplitView = ViewRotator().rotate

notepad.rotateSplitView()

Alan Kilborn

@Ekopalypse

This is an interesting approach to remembering toggle_rotating_direction from run to run of the script. Side note: IMO the name of that variable could have been better.

If I were writing that script, I might have remembered only the variable in the notepad variable (i.e., notepad.toggle_rotating_direction = …) instead of the function.

Your way has the advantage that you’ve added a general purpose function (notepad.rotateSplitView()) that could also easily be called by other scripts.

Ekopalypse

@Alan-Kilborn said in Shortcut or menu path to "Rotate to right/left":

IMO the name of that variable could have been better

Sure, but I’m constantly struggling to name things.
What would be your choice? change_rotating_direction?

…

I had the same thoughts and decided to use a function because it can easily be modified to use a parameter to get either a split landscape or portrait view.

Alan Kilborn

IMO the name of that variable could have been better

The reason toggle_rotating_direction isn’t good IMO is because, every time the code runs a toggle happens, and not just when toggle_rotating_direction is true.

what would be your choice?

Hmm, for this one, since it is a boolean, I might go with next_rotate_is_to_the_right.

With something like that, true/false makes sense.

Of course, this is all up to individual taste.

I’m constantly struggling to name things.

Yes, it is hard sometimes. Often what I do is to name something zz or zzz and just barrel ahead coding with that. Later, like when I’ve completed the local block of code, a good name surfaces and a rename fixes things.

I find that if I spend the time up front to come up with a great name, the code to be written changes the meaning somewhat and the great name is no longer great. So I end up taking the time to come up with 2 good names instead of just 1. Naming after the fact seems a viable technique, at least for me.

Of course I don’t do this 100% of the time, just when a suitable name doesn’t immediately come to mind.