Wednesday, August 02, 2006

Definition protocol

For a long time now, you've been able to look at a word definition in the listener:
\ append see
Jump to its definition in jEdit:
\ append jedit
Or reload the source file containing it:
\ append reload
Or even remove the word definition -- just don't do this with core words:
\ testing forget
Well, I've stolen yet-another-InterLisp-feature, and added a generic protocol whereby other types of definitions can be used with the above four words. You can jump to method definitions, even if they're defined in a different source file than either the class or the generic word:
{ string = } jedit
You can also jump to help article definitions:
"handbook" <link> jedit
And of course, see, reload and forget also works with methods and help links.

Previously I used Factor's tools to jump to word definitions, but had to resort to jEdit's directory search feature to find help articles and method definitions. Not that directory search is bad, but even a savings of a second here and two seconds there adds up.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

its not the second or two lost with this, its the switch in context and resulting lack of focus and possible loss of zone.