#71 Developer eXperience - Documentation (Doc) panel should open and close contextually (when needed)

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opened 8 years ago by nero · 0 comments

Originally at 2015-09-23T18:53:32Z by Mircea S.

In Helios IDE, when I select AnyClass in the Class Browser the Doc panel should enable automatically and stay open when selecting either Class or Instance modes.

Selecting a Package, a Protocol or a Method in their respective panel should close this panel.

What will this improve:

  1. Having the panel open in this contextual way will make developers take note that it exists, and actually use it to describe or improve the description of Classes. Reading of current Documentation will improve as the Developer doesn't have to make a conscious decision to open the panel.

Problems and hurdles:

  1. What will happen to the Class or Instance declaration code in the panel to the left. Will there be enough room? R: In Smalltalk Class declarations are implemented as a message sends to some other Class that serves as the super class. The message send gets indented into two, three, four or more lines and its length is more often than not equal to it's height (unless the class has a myriad of instance variables, which case its rather nice to see it wrapped on a second or third line*).

*There is currently no way to distinguish if a line was wrapped or Carriage (cartridge) Return was entered to get to the next line.

PS. This is more like an enhancement request than a bug, I have a couple of these written down and I'll add them here for posterity, or until I can code them in myself.

Want to back this issue? Post a bounty on it! We accept bounties via Bountysource.

Originally at 2015-09-23T18:53:32Z by Mircea S. In Helios IDE, when I select AnyClass in the Class Browser the Doc panel should enable automatically and stay open when selecting either Class or Instance modes. Selecting a Package, a Protocol or a Method in their respective panel should close this panel. What will this improve: 1. Having the panel open in this contextual way will make developers take note that it exists, and actually use it to describe or improve the description of Classes. Reading of current Documentation will improve as the Developer doesn't have to make a conscious decision to open the panel. Problems and hurdles: 1. What will happen to the Class or Instance declaration code in the panel to the left. Will there be enough room? R: In Smalltalk Class declarations are implemented as a message sends to some other Class that serves as the super class. The message send gets indented into two, three, four or more lines and its length is more often than not equal to it's height (unless the class has a myriad of instance variables, which case its rather nice to see it wrapped on a second or third line*). *There is currently no way to distinguish if a line was wrapped or Carriage (cartridge) Return was entered to get to the next line. PS. This is more like an enhancement request than a bug, I have a couple of these written down and I'll add them here for posterity, or until I can code them in myself. <bountysource-plugin> --- Want to back this issue? **[Post a bounty on it!](https://www.bountysource.com/issues/26904083-developer-experience-documentation-doc-panel-should-open-and-close-contextually-when-needed?utm_campaign=plugin&utm_content=tracker%2F3968890&utm_medium=issues&utm_source=github)** We accept bounties via [Bountysource](https://www.bountysource.com/?utm_campaign=plugin&utm_content=tracker%2F3968890&utm_medium=issues&utm_source=github). </bountysource-plugin>
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