MacroInspect which comments macros

guy038

Hello, @mpheath, @alan-kilborn and All,

I do not wish to minimize your approaches and works, on this matter, but I’m wondering :

Wouldn’t it be better to simply add a comment attribute to any section of the shortcuts.xml file ?

Perhaps, I’m not seeing all the implications or drawbacks of this possible improvement !

BR

guy038

Alan Kilborn

@guy038 said in MacroInspect which comments macros:

drawbacks of this possible improvement

The next time that N++ itself needs to update shortcuts.xml, say goodbye to the comments.

guy038

Hi, @mpheath, @alan-kilborn and All,

Well, I meant something like this :

            <Action type="0" message 2170" wParam="0" lParam="0", sParam="" comments="Scintilla Message SCI_COPY" />
            <Action type="2" message="0" wParam="41001" lParam="0" sParam="" comments="Menu command FILE_NEW" />

Best Regards,

guy038

PeterJones

@guy038 said in MacroInspect which comments macros:

Well, I meant something like this :

Unfortunately, that still won’t work: Manually create that macro with the comments attributes, then restart: the comments attributes are still there, because Notepad++ hasn’t tried to write that file yet; then use Macro > Modify Shortcut/Delete Macro to change the shortcut for any macro (even a different macro), exit Notepad++, and restart: the comments attributes are gone, because Notepad++ re-wrote the file during the exit.

When Notepad++ needs to write out shortcuts.xml – which it needs to do if you use the GUI to change something in Shortcut Mapper, or record or delete a Macro, or add a new Run menu command – then it will only include the attributes that Notepad++ tracks, so the comments attribute will go away; since Notepad++ doesn’t track  comments either, those will also go away.

This is why, if I want a permanent comment, I either use the sParam attribute to hold a command that doesn’t use the sParam value, or I add dummy commands using the SCI_NULL command using type="0" message="2172" `, as in:

<Action type="0" message="2172" wParam="0" lParam="0" sParam="This Comment Will Be Kept" />

guy038

Hello, @mpheath, @alan-kilborn, @peterjones and All,

Peter, I still don’t understand ! Of course, without some modifications in N++ code, this method would obviously not work !

But, if the structure of the Shortcuts.xml file is globally modified in order to include an empty comments attribute, by default, I do not see why this new behavior wouldn’t work !

I also understand that, if a macro would be deleted, from the Shortcut Mapper, every part of this specific macro would be deleted, including the comments !

BR

guy038

PeterJones

@guy038 ,

Sorry, I did not realize you were suggesting modifying Notepad++ to be able to allow a comment="..." attribute. That’s something completely different.

My comments about Shortcut Mapper were not trying to say that you should delete the macro under investigation for the experiment; my comments were that, for all existing versions of Notepad++, if you change the keyboard shortcut for any macro (or if you record a new macro, or add a new Run menu command, or change the keyboard shortcut for any menu entry), then when the current version of Notepad++ writes the file, it will write it without  and without comments="pseudocomment" attributes included, thus erasing it. I was talking about existing behavior.

For a feature request: I doubt Don would be interested in allowing the new attribute, because it’s not something that the Macro Recorder will use, and probably not something that even most people manually editing macros would use; he doesn’t often add (or allow others to add) features that would just help the select few power-users.

And without a feature request, my workaround examples of using sParam – either on actions that just leave it sParam="", or on the SCI_NULL action – seems a good workaround for power users who want to document their macros under existing conditions.

Alan Kilborn

This post is deleted!

guy038

Hello, @mpheath, @alan-kilborn, @peterjones and All,

Note that, if this new attribute would exist, then, using the @mpheath’s solution or any other one, it could be possible to fill in all the comments zones automatically, when N++ exits and the shortcuts.xml file is saved !

On restarting N++, the display of the shortcuts.xml file would produce good pieces of information, in the user language !

However, this would probably need a lot of coding for, I must admit, a little benefice !

Best Regards,

guy038

mpheath

To All, I have updated the gist with revision 2.
Minor changes. The header files will be removed if json files are created or already exist.

@Alan-Kilborn said in MacroInspect which comments macros:

I’d have been more apt to leave them if the code had created a subdir and put them in that.
As is, I don’t like misc files sitting in the root of my config dir.

Agree. It could get very messy if scripts follow the trend including this script.

The name of this subdir could be Config\MacroInspect though I consider that as starting an ugly trend. Perhaps within the Config\PythonScript\scripts\MacroInspect though still the files are not scripts as they are data files.

Perhaps a central subdir like Config\Temp and temporary data files go there. So a user can clean that directory periodically and the scripts can remake the data files from latest version content as needed. To save name collisions could possibly prefix the files with script name like MacroInspect-Type0.json for example. If a script does not remake the data files then this temp directory would not be good to use and so may need a subdir like Config\Static for example.

The concept may need some confirmation before I modify the script to alter where the data files go else the script may make a mess with obsolete data files in the Config directory.

Alan Kilborn

@mpheath

When I write a script that needs a permanent data file, I put the data file in the same folder as the script with a common prefix on the name. An example probably helps:

Script: ...\plugins\Config\PythonScript\scripts\fubar.py
Data: ...\plugins\Config\PythonScript\scripts\fubar_data.json

It’s not too messy; locate the script (e.g. Windows Explorer) and the data file is visually adjacent to it.

If I need more than one data file (i.e., your situation), I give everything its own folder:

Folder: ...\plugins\Config\PythonScript\scripts\foo\
Script: ...\plugins\Config\PythonScript\scripts\foo\foo.py
Data1: ...\plugins\Config\PythonScript\scripts\foo\foo_data1.json
Data2: ...\plugins\Config\PythonScript\scripts\foo\foo_data2.txt

In this case it isn’t terribly important to name the data files with the common prefix…

YMMV. I’m sure you’ll decide on a workable solution.

mpheath

To All, I have updated the gist with revision 3.

Implemented the @Alan-Kilborn idea of single json file saved next to the script.

Please manually remove existing data files from the Config directory:

FindReplaceDlg_rc.h
FindReplaceDlg_rc.h.json
Scintilla.h
Scintilla.h.json

Update MacroInspect.py in the Config\PythonScript\scripts directory. On first run should download the header data and save to Config\PythonScript\scripts\MacroInspect_data.json. No temporary header files as the data will all be processed in memory.

Improved message 1701 comment which is IDC_FRCOMMAND_EXEC will now show it’s lParam related constant.
Some examples:

<!-- IDC_FRCOMMAND_EXEC  [IDCMARKALL] -->
<!-- IDC_FRCOMMAND_EXEC  [IDD_FINDINFILES_FIND_BUTTON] -->
<!-- IDC_FRCOMMAND_EXEC  [IDD_FINDINFILES_FINDINPROJECTS] -->

Alan Kilborn

I ran revision 3 and it seemed to go as desired.

Afterward I looked for the MacroInspect_data.json file and curiously I did not find it anywhere on my system.

After changing the code to add print('json_file:', json_file) I then saw the problem.
I use a script to “run the script in the active tab” so that I can tie it to a keycombo for quickly executing a script under development, over and over again as development proceeds. I think I would go mad if I had to navigate the menus to repeatedly run a script I’m actively working on. (Yes, there are other alternatives…)

Anyway, I found that the data file for your script was being created for me as RunCurrentPyFileAsPythonscript_data.json because my “script runner” script is named RunCurrentPyFileAsPythonscript.py. This results (apparently) from the use of __file__ in your code.

No big deal, I can compensate for this… :-)

Again, great job on a great script.

mpheath

@Alan-Kilborn

Sorry to hear. It’s still a bug even if it is a script running a script. I just tested sys.argv and thought argument 0 might be OK though it returns ['C:\\Programs\\Notepad++\\notepad++.exe']. If you can test something that works for you and everyone else then please share. I may test some alternatives though I am not sure if I can reproduce your environment to be sure of a fix.

Alan Kilborn

@mpheath

In general, a way I’ve found to do it is:

inspect.getframeinfo(inspect.currentframe()).filename

after importing inspect, and then getting the directory part of the path from that.

This worked great in PythonScript2, as the path to the file was returned from the inspect call. In PythonScript3, however, all that call obtains is a filename without the complete path.

You can experiment with that if you like, or I’ll post some more complete code later.

mpheath

@Alan-Kilborn

Just tested in a Python interpreter. __file__ can be set to a value. So perhaps your RunCurrentPyFileAsPythonscript.py can set __file__ to the absolute path of the child script before it runs the subprocess, so then the child process use of __file__ is inherited like as if it is the main process.

Alan Kilborn

@mpheath said:

perhaps your RunCurrentPyFileAsPythonscript.py can set file to the absolute path of the child script before it runs …

A good idea, however it doesn’t work (I still get the calling script’s name/path), at least the way I’m having a script run a script; there are many ways to do it. It’s actually surprisingly difficult to have a script run a script (and have things all turn out like you’d like).

LATER EDIT:
Actually, it did work; what caused it to not work the first time I tried it was programmer error, i.e., me!
I may have to look further into using the __file__ variable technique instead of my inspect-based technique, as it seems like it could simplify things under Python3.

Alan Kilborn

@mpheath

I see you didn’t break down the search “boolean” values in your latest script, so, I took the liberty of pulling that code from my now defunct macro disassembler and inserting it into your script:

elif message == 'IDC_FRCOMMAND_BOOLEANS':
    numeric_data = int(v)
    bit_weights_numeric_value_to_str_dict = {
        1    : 'MATCH_WHOLE_WORD_ONLY',
        2    : 'MATCH_CASE',
        4    : 'PURGE_MARKS_BEFORE_NEW_SEARCH',
        16   : 'BOOKMARK_LINE',
        32   : 'IN_SUBFOLDERS',
        64   : 'IN_HIDDEN_FOLDERS',
        128  : 'IN_SELECTION__OR__PROJECT1',
        256  : 'WRAP_AROUND__OR__PROJECT2',
        512  : 'FORWARD_DIRECTION__OR__PROJECT3',
        1024 : 'DOT_MATCHES_NEWLINE_FOR_REGEX',
        }
    running_single_bitweight = 1
    search_options_str_list = []
    while numeric_data != 0:
        if running_single_bitweight in bit_weights_numeric_value_to_str_dict:
            if (numeric_data & running_single_bitweight) != 0:
                search_options_str_list.append(bit_weights_numeric_value_to_str_dict[running_single_bitweight])
        numeric_data &= ~running_single_bitweight
        running_single_bitweight <<= 1
    value_str = 'NONE' if len(search_options_str_list) == 0 else ' / '.join(search_options_str_list)
    comment += '  [ ' + value_str + ' ]'

mpheath

@Alan-Kilborn

I have already tested IDC_FRCOMMAND_BOOLEANS and ran into issues. If you look at the json data file, you may see lines like:

        "128": "IDF_IN_SELECTION_CHECK IDF_FINDINFILES_PROJECT1_CHECK",
        "256": "IDF_WRAP IDF_FINDINFILES_PROJECT2_CHECK",
        "512": "IDF_WHICH_DIRECTION IDF_FINDINFILES_PROJECT3_CHECK",

which has space delimited pairs of constant names.

as I use this code to fill the dictionary with the constant pairs:

                if k in dic:
                    dic[k] += ' ' + v
                else:
                    dic[k] = v

which are pairs that share the same boolean value in which only 1 can be correct. Though in testing depending on the FindReplaceDLG tab recorded, sometimes none are correct IMO. I am unsure if I can fix the code I have to make it reliable as some incorrect comments may make the user puzzled. I suspect that perhaps some bit flags should not be in the lParams value and perhaps the playback ignores them, though that does not help with making the xml comments.

Edit:

There is also a possibility that Notepad++ is getting the checkbox booleans incorrect. Unchecked/checked is ok until disabling the checkbox, which leads to a 3rd state with a enabled/disabled needing to be validated. IDK yet and so may need investigation. This may explain why I get IDF_FINDINFILES_PROJECT2_CHECK and IDF_FINDINFILES_PROJECT3_CHECK in the comments even though they are unchecked and disabled so cannot be valid in the xml comments.

Alan Kilborn

@mpheath said in MacroInspect which comments macros:

I have already tested IDC_FRCOMMAND_BOOLEANS and ran into issues.

I don’t know…but I’m fairly certain the code I posted works correctly.

which are pairs that share the same boolean value in which only 1 can be correct.

Yep, the “genius” that implemented the project options decided repurposing some bit weighting for that was a great idea.

I suspect that perhaps some bit flags should not be in the lParams value and perhaps the playback ignores them

Yes, there can be items that are not applicable in there.
If one knew in advance what the 1701 value was going to be, one could filter out the n/a items, but alas the 1702 message comes before the 1701.

mpheath

To All, I have updated the gist with revision 4.

Added feature for IDC_FRCOMMAND_BOOLEANS comment to display the options as the related boolean constants.
Added code to only comment Actions that a not in a multi-line comment block which is quite basic code just intended for the existing comments distributed in shortcuts.xml.

This script might be complete unless I have missed something.

@Alan-Kilborn Thanks for sharing the IDC_FRCOMMAND_BOOLEANS code that you use. I went with what I had and decided to keep the code basic and not go deeper into it as the IDC_FRCOMMAND_EXEC actions are many. Two passes of the shortcuts.xml could be done to get the IDC_FRCOMMAND_EXEC actions on the first pass and use a blacklist on the second pass though is it better to try simple IMO before trying complex and probably end up with much uglier code. And as you mention earlier with the idea of a PythonScript example script which IMO should be simple to understand.

@guy038 I’m not a fan of using attributes as comments though this script may help to get the information quicker which from my point of view was the main goal.

@PeterJones Thanks for the lesson of why attributes as comments are used. I was not aware of the exact reason before this topic started.