Re: Scripting update

On Friday 19 July 2002 17:42, ian reinhart geiser wrote:
> On Saturday 20 July 2002 11:16 am, Anders Lund wrote:

> [...]

>
> > * add interfaces/dcop interfaces enough to make scripting merely worth it
>
> I think you have the cart before the horse, I think we need to make more
> script engines and get better documentation for what we have.  I dont think
> we will reall have a clue of what users want until they try it.

Well, I try to write some scripts, doing stuff I am missing, to get some kind 
of feeling, and recognize what is needed. So far I have "selection to 
lowercase", "selection to upper case", "characters to XML".

> > * release KDE 4, so that we can get to clean up those;)
>
> Ummm... thats 2 years...

sure:) just a bit of frustration...

> > * add dcop interfaces for (some) Kate interfaces
>
> I think we really need stuff for things like file new, open file, close
> file, just basic document management

Well, some can be added using the available actions, if it isn't buggy. Others 
are easy to add.

> > examples of missing stuff:
> >   - there is no way to get to know where a selection starts/ends
>
> The selection and block selection interfaces dont provide this?
> I have dcop interfaces for BlockSelection, but I have not commited them
> since they are not in the feature plan.

I have a local SelectionInterfaceExt that provides them working now, will 
commit later. And - as jowenn suggested - go ahead:)

> >   - we should provide acces to editStart()/editEnd() for easy un/redoing
>
> yes this is needed
>
> > Some notes:
> > Since scripting Kate this way often will mean digging out the relevant of
> > *many* interfaces, it is not very easy or logic at this point. Maybe
> > using DCOPRef can enhance things a bit. The worst part is KTextEditor
> > ***Extension classes, adding badly to the confusion. If we put viewcursor
> > and selection interfaces in the views, and keeps them in the documents
> > for backwards compability, things gets even more blurry.
>
> Remember "Machines look at this interface NOT humans".  If we document the
> interface its acutally quite easy to use.  Note anyone who has worked with
> COM, AppleScript or any scripting enbviroment knows how ugly it is under
> the hood.  Our implementation is actually quite clean.

Good:) And I see from the tread that you and cullmann has been discussing 
additional idears for making it nice to use as well. I guess I would prefer 
having everything in the view/document classses in kate.

> > And where for "normal" purposes, you can use kdcop to copy the
> > interface/method names and signatures, for kate with it's MDI that does
> > not work directly, because you need to know the # of the document you
> > wish to work with.
>
> Again see the above point.  There is no way currently to record and play
> back actions. (Although this is possible in the future).  We can only
> simplify the interface enough to make it useless, so lets work with what we
> have.   I think we like to get confused when we use tools like kdcop or
> dcop in general.  Remember dcop is just an API... you adhere to the rules
> and its very easy to write.

Well, I just have a bad need for debating those things, as I think it leads to 
better implementations:)

-anders