[Geany] Per-workspace instance of Geany

[Julien Nicoulaud]

Hi all,
I'm using GNOME with several workspaces, and there's a behaviour I find
quite annoying: if you have an instance of Geany running in a workspace and
you open a file in another workspace, it just opens the file in the already
running instance and switches you back to the workspace. I know this is more
a usability issue at the desktop environment level than Geany in particular,
since it is the same for other programs such as web browsers, but may be
Geany could address it ?

Anyway, I wrote a little wrapper script that detects if there's no Geany
window in the current workspace, in which case it forces creating one:
https://github.com/nicoulaj/dotfiles/blob/master/bin/geany
It was only tested on GNOME but should work as well on other desktop
environments.

-- Julien

[Krzysztof Żelechowski]

Post by Julien Nicoulaud
Hi all,
I'm using GNOME with several workspaces, and there's a behaviour I find
quite annoying: if you have an instance of Geany running in a workspace and
you open a file in another workspace, it just opens the file in the already
running instance and switches you back to the workspace. I know this is more
a usability issue at the desktop environment level than Geany in particular,
since it is the same for other programs such as web browsers, but may be
Geany could address it ?
Anyway, I wrote a little wrapper script that detects if there's no Geany
https://github.com/nicoulaj/dotfiles/blob/master/bin/geany
It was only tested on GNOME but should work as well on other desktop
environments.

There are four ways to go here.

1. Leave things as it is because Geany is an IDE, so if a file needs to be sent to Geany, it is probably good to show other developer tools as well.
2. Move Geany to the active desktop.
3. Share Geany with the active desktop.
4. Start a separate Geany environment.

I do not see any obvious preference to any of these options.

Chris

[Randy Kramer]

Well, from the peanut gallery, to me there's an obvious
preference--number 4--it should start a new instance in the current
workspace. For now it doesn't affect me, because until I get a lexer
for askRhk, I'm only experimenting with Geany. But, once I start using
Geany as my default editor, I'd expect to have at least one instance in
every workspace (desktop) that I'm using, and files that I open in the
workspace should open in the instance of Geany in that workspace.

Randy Kramer

Post by Krzysztof Żelechowski

Post by Julien Nicoulaud
Hi all,
I'm using GNOME with several workspaces, and there's a behaviour I
find quite annoying: if you have an instance of Geany running in a
workspace and you open a file in another workspace, it just opens
the file in the already running instance and switches you back to
the workspace. I know this is more a usability issue at the desktop
environment level than Geany in particular, since it is the same
for other programs such as web browsers, but may be Geany could
address it ?
Anyway, I wrote a little wrapper script that detects if there's no
Geany window in the current workspace, in which case it forces
https://github.com/nicoulaj/dotfiles/blob/master/bin/geany It was
only tested on GNOME but should work as well on other desktop
environments.

There are four ways to go here.
1. Leave things as it is because Geany is an IDE, so if a file
needs to be sent to Geany, it is probably good to show other
developer tools as well. 2. Move Geany to the active desktop.
3. Share Geany with the active desktop.
4. Start a separate Geany environment.
I do not see any obvious preference to any of these options.
Chris
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http://lists.uvena.de/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geany

[Lex Trotman]

Post by Randy Kramer
Well, from the peanut gallery, to me there's an obvious
preference--number 4--it should start a new instance in the current
workspace.  For now it doesn't affect me, because until I get a lexer
for askRhk, I'm only experimenting with Geany.  But, once I start using
Geany as my default editor, I'd expect to have at least one instance in
every workspace (desktop) that I'm using, and files that I open in the
workspace should open in the instance of Geany in that workspace.
Randy Kramer

Post by Krzysztof Żelechowski

Post by Julien Nicoulaud
Hi all,
I'm using GNOME with several workspaces, and there's a behaviour I
find quite annoying: if you have an instance of Geany running in a
workspace and you open a file in another workspace, it just opens
the file in the already running instance and switches you back to
the workspace. I know this is more a usability issue at the desktop
environment level than Geany in particular, since it is the same
for other programs such as web browsers, but may be Geany could
address it ?
Anyway, I wrote a little wrapper script that detects if there's no
Geany window in the current workspace, in which case it forces
https://github.com/nicoulaj/dotfiles/blob/master/bin/geany It was
only tested on GNOME but should work as well on other desktop
environments.

There are four ways to go here.
  1. Leave things as it is because Geany is an IDE, so if a file
needs to be sent to Geany, it is probably good to show other
developer tools as well. 2. Move Geany to the active desktop.
  3. Share Geany with the active desktop.
  4. Start a separate Geany environment.
I do not see any obvious preference to any of these options.
Chris

Hi All,

There are two issues that I see which complicate potential solutions here.

1. There is not AFAIK any common portable way to find out which
workspace Geany is running in and that a request to show a file in
Geany came from a different workspace, so deciding to run another
instance or move Geany to another workspace is going to have to be
solved for each system Geany runs on. This is probably why many
applications are not workspace aware.

2. Issues around running multiple instances of Geany have not yet been
finalised despite significant passionate debate on several past
threads. This means that there are problems manually running multiple
instances, let alone automatically running them. Some of the issues
are:

a. who owns the preferences? preventing multiple instances from
changing preferences is very limiting, if they can all change them,
who saves their set when Geany terminates? and how to lock them
irrespective of the filesystem they reside on to prevent scrambled
preferences?

b. how do you restart multiple instances? which leads to session
management being required, but Geany has two potential implementations
of that and no clear path forward yet

c. the same issues relating to preferences apply to project files
being used by more than one instance, or if a project can be open in
only one instance how to enforce that?

d. and of course these also apply to the same document file being open
in multiple instances, at logout/shutdown who's copy gets saved? how
do you detect the fact so you can at least warn the user? remember
that locking and the like don't work on remote filesystems.

3. It is (I think) a big change to allow Geany to have one instance
with multiple top level windows, how to handle different projects in
different top levels? how to handle different preferences in different
top levels?

So AFAICT there is no clear solution.

My personal choice would be 3 because it would then also support
multiple monitor setups, but I believe that there is a lot of usage
issues to resolve and a LOT of work involved.

Any good ideas welcome.

Cheers
Lex

Post by Randy Kramer

Post by Krzysztof Żelechowski
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[Dimitar Zhekov]

On Sun, 23 Jan 2011 13:07:31 +1100

Post by Lex Trotman
a. who owns the preferences? preventing multiple instances from
changing preferences is very limiting, if they can all change them,
who saves their set when Geany terminates? and how to lock them
irrespective of the filesystem they reside on to prevent scrambled
preferences?

Windows: the instances are stopped one by one. The last one wins.
X11: the session management supports instances.

Post by Lex Trotman
b. how do you restart multiple instances? which leads to session
management being required, but Geany has two potential implementations
of that and no clear path forward yet

It has a complete sm for the current single-instance behaviour, and an
incomplete multi-instance sm for the non-implemented multi-instance
behaviour. So the real question is, do we plan to introduce any multi
instancing in Geany in the foreseeable future? If not, the last
single-instance sm applies against 5530, and is quite stable.

Post by Lex Trotman
c. the same issues relating to preferences apply to project files
being used by more than one instance, or if a project can be open in
only one instance how to enforce that?

The same answer as for a. and b.

Post by Lex Trotman
d. and of course these also apply to the same document file being open
in multiple instances, at logout/shutdown who's copy gets saved? how
do you detect the fact so you can at least warn the user? remember
that locking and the like don't work on remote filesystems.

Both Windows and X11-sm will ask you for any modified files.

(In the current implementation, both simply terminate.)

[Julien Nicoulaud]

Thanks for the infos and script Dimitar !

Post by Dimitar Zhekov
On Sun, 23 Jan 2011 13:07:31 +1100

Post by Lex Trotman
a. who owns the preferences? preventing multiple instances from
changing preferences is very limiting, if they can all change them,
who saves their set when Geany terminates? and how to lock them
irrespective of the filesystem they reside on to prevent scrambled
preferences?

Why not save preferences right when closing the preferences dialog ? That's
what I would except as a lambda user.

Post by Dimitar Zhekov
Windows: the instances are stopped one by one. The last one wins.
X11: the session management supports instances.

Post by Lex Trotman
b. how do you restart multiple instances? which leads to session
management being required, but Geany has two potential implementations
of that and no clear path forward yet

It has a complete sm for the current single-instance behaviour, and an
incomplete multi-instance sm for the non-implemented multi-instance
behaviour. So the real question is, do we plan to introduce any multi
instancing in Geany in the foreseeable future? If not, the last
single-instance sm applies against 5530, and is quite stable.

Post by Lex Trotman
c. the same issues relating to preferences apply to project files
being used by more than one instance, or if a project can be open in
only one instance how to enforce that?

The same answer as for a. and b.

Post by Lex Trotman
d. and of course these also apply to the same document file being open
in multiple instances, at logout/shutdown who's copy gets saved? how
do you detect the fact so you can at least warn the user? remember
that locking and the like don't work on remote filesystems.

Both Windows and X11-sm will ask you for any modified files.
(In the current implementation, both simply terminate.)
--
E-gards: Jimmy
_______________________________________________
Geany mailing list
http://lists.uvena.de/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geany

[Lex Trotman]

Post by Julien Nicoulaud
Thanks for the infos and script Dimitar !

Post by Dimitar Zhekov
On Sun, 23 Jan 2011 13:07:31 +1100

Post by Lex Trotman
a. who owns the preferences? preventing multiple instances from
changing preferences is very limiting, if they can all change them,
who saves their set when Geany terminates? and how to lock them
irrespective of the filesystem they reside on to prevent scrambled
preferences?

Why not save preferences right when closing the preferences dialog ? That's
what I would except as a lambda user.

Hi,

Unfortunately the "preferences" includes things that are not set in
the prefs dialog, eg screen layout recent files etc. Writing this
stuff whenever it changes would mean constantly writing the prefs file
and in the absence of locking (which is not available for all file
systems) would increase the chances that two instances would try to
write it at the same time.

And then there is project session stuff, again writing it all the time
is risky, writing it at the end is a who wins problem.

Cheers
Lex

PS The prefs file currently also includes some session stuff but I'm
assuming that gets moved when session support is added, but the
project session stuff can't be

Post by Julien Nicoulaud

Post by Dimitar Zhekov
Windows: the instances are stopped one by one. The last one wins.
X11: the session management supports instances.

Post by Lex Trotman
b. how do you restart multiple instances? which leads to session
management being required, but Geany has two potential implementations
of that and no clear path forward yet

It has a complete sm for the current single-instance behaviour, and an
incomplete multi-instance sm for the non-implemented multi-instance
behaviour. So the real question is, do we plan to introduce any multi
instancing in Geany in the foreseeable future? If not, the last
single-instance sm applies against 5530, and is quite stable.

Post by Lex Trotman
c. the same issues relating to preferences apply to project files
being used by more than one instance, or if a project can be open in
only one instance how to enforce that?

The same answer as for a. and b.

Post by Lex Trotman
d. and of course these also apply to the same document file being open
in multiple instances, at logout/shutdown who's copy gets saved? how
do you detect the fact so you can at least warn the user? remember
that locking and the like don't work on remote filesystems.

Both Windows and X11-sm will ask you for any modified files.
(In the current implementation, both simply terminate.)
--
E-gards: Jimmy
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Geany mailing list
http://lists.uvena.de/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geany

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[Lex Trotman]

Hiya,

Post by Dimitar Zhekov
On Sun, 23 Jan 2011 13:07:31 +1100

Post by Lex Trotman
a. who owns the preferences? preventing multiple instances from
changing preferences is very limiting, if they can all change them,
who saves their set when Geany terminates? and how to lock them
irrespective of the filesystem they reside on to prevent scrambled
preferences?

Windows: the instances are stopped one by one. The last one wins.

Kinda arbitary :-)

Post by Dimitar Zhekov
X11: the session management supports instances.

So who decides who wins?

Post by Dimitar Zhekov

Post by Lex Trotman
b. how do you restart multiple instances? which leads to session
management being required, but Geany has two potential implementations
of that and no clear path forward yet

It has a complete sm for the current single-instance behaviour, and an
incomplete multi-instance sm for the non-implemented multi-instance
behaviour. So the real question is, do we plan to introduce any multi
instancing in Geany in the foreseeable future? If not, the last
single-instance sm applies against 5530, and is quite stable.

I didn't realise that the single instance was working, now 0.20 is out
maybe its worth prompting Nick, Enrico, Frank et al because it would
be worthwhile adding the ability for Geany to close and re-open with
the session.

The question of course was about multi instance, and as you say its still ...

Post by Dimitar Zhekov

Post by Lex Trotman
c. the same issues relating to preferences apply to project files
being used by more than one instance, or if a project can be open in
only one instance how to enforce that?

The same answer as for a. and b.

There wasn't a user acceptable multi-instance answer in a or b.

Post by Dimitar Zhekov

Post by Lex Trotman
d. and of course these also apply to the same document file being open
in multiple instances, at logout/shutdown who's copy gets saved? how
do you detect the fact so you can at least warn the user? remember
that locking and the like don't work on remote filesystems.

Both Windows and X11-sm will ask you for any modified files.
(In the current implementation, both simply terminate.)

Making incorporation of the single instance sm patch even more worthwhile.

But that doesn't help the user to decide which of multiple instances
is the correct one to save the prefs/project/file from.

Cheers
Lex

Post by Dimitar Zhekov
--
E-gards: Jimmy
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[Eugene Arshinov]

On Mon, 24 Jan 2011 11:22:33 +1100%

Post by Lex Trotman
Hiya,

Post by Dimitar Zhekov
On Sun, 23 Jan 2011 13:07:31 +1100

Post by Lex Trotman
a. who owns the preferences? preventing multiple instances from
changing preferences is very limiting, if they can all change them,
who saves their set when Geany terminates? and how to lock them
irrespective of the filesystem they reside on to prevent scrambled
preferences?

Windows: the instances are stopped one by one. The last one wins.

Kinda arbitary :-)

Post by Dimitar Zhekov
X11: the session management supports instances.

So who decides who wins?

Post by Dimitar Zhekov

Post by Lex Trotman
b. how do you restart multiple instances? which leads to session
management being required, but Geany has two potential
implementations of that and no clear path forward yet

It has a complete sm for the current single-instance behaviour, and
an incomplete multi-instance sm for the non-implemented
multi-instance behaviour. So the real question is, do we plan to
introduce any multi instancing in Geany in the foreseeable future?
If not, the last single-instance sm applies against 5530, and is
quite stable.

I didn't realise that the single instance was working, now 0.20 is out
maybe its worth prompting Nick, Enrico, Frank et al because it would
be worthwhile adding the ability for Geany to close and re-open with
the session.
The question of course was about multi instance, and as you say its still ...

It will be fine if Dimitar's implementation is included in trunk. It
is more "right" than mine. Moreover, it does not contain so much
miscellaneous stuff unrelated to session management.

Post by Lex Trotman

Post by Dimitar Zhekov

Post by Lex Trotman
c. the same issues relating to preferences apply to project files
being used by more than one instance, or if a project can be open
in only one instance how to enforce that?

The same answer as for a. and b.

There wasn't a user acceptable multi-instance answer in a or b.

Post by Dimitar Zhekov

Post by Lex Trotman
d. and of course these also apply to the same document file being
open in multiple instances, at logout/shutdown who's copy gets
saved? how do you detect the fact so you can at least warn the
user? remember that locking and the like don't work on remote
filesystems.

Both Windows and X11-sm will ask you for any modified files.
(In the current implementation, both simply terminate.)

Making incorporation of the single instance sm patch even more
worthwhile.
But that doesn't help the user to decide which of multiple instances
is the correct one to save the prefs/project/file from.
Cheers
Lex

Post by Dimitar Zhekov
--
E-gards: Jimmy
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[Dimitar Zhekov]

On Mon, 24 Jan 2011 11:22:33 +1100

Post by Lex Trotman

Post by Dimitar Zhekov
X11: the session management supports instances.

So who decides who wins?

To answer both a and b, nobody wins. For the preferences and project
files, the single instance sm works like hybernate-and-restore: each
instance preserves it's own configuration, and neither geany.conf nor
the project files are saved.

(For the document files it asks if to save, of course. XSMP suggests
that a modified file may be saved into a temporary file, and then
reloaded and remarked as modified, but I have yet to see a progam
impementing THAT idea.)

Post by Lex Trotman
It will be fine if Dimitar's implementation is included in trunk. It
is more "right" than mine.

Thanks. :)

Post by Lex Trotman
Moreover, it does not contain so much
miscellaneous stuff unrelated to session management.

Actually none. Two extra patches are required, but one of them is
shared with the various prefs editor, and the other is a cleanup.

[Lex Trotman]

Post by Eugene Arshinov
On Mon, 24 Jan 2011 11:22:33 +1100

Post by Lex Trotman

Post by Dimitar Zhekov
X11: the session management supports instances.

So who decides who wins?

To answer both a and b, nobody wins. For the preferences and project
files, the single instance sm works like hybernate-and-restore: each
instance preserves it's own configuration, and neither geany.conf nor
the project files are saved.

Oh ok, its unchanged wins :-), ie thats what is left in the
prefs/project files for use by any new instance started up. Or
another way to look at it is the most recently closed Geany wins,
assuming a user eventually closes one or more of the instances.

Post by Eugene Arshinov
(For the document files it asks if to save, of course. XSMP suggests
that a modified file may be saved into a temporary file, and then
reloaded and remarked as modified, but I have yet to see a progam
impementing THAT idea.)

For saving files, and to some extent projects, the problem is not the
software, its the liveware behind the keyboard, an example scenario:
I have f.txt open and modified in two instances (perhaps on different
workspaces and I've forgotten about having two). At logout the session
management makes Geany instance one pop-up a "save modified file
f.txt?" box, I say yes/no, then instance two does the same and I get
very confused about which one I want??!@#$%^&* I'm in a rush to logout
and going to miss my bus home :-( Maybe the temporary file now and
decide later has some merit!

BTW how does that dialog box identify the instance?

Post by Eugene Arshinov

Post by Lex Trotman
It will be fine if Dimitar's implementation is included in trunk. It
is more "right" than mine.

Thanks. :)

Post by Lex Trotman
Moreover, it does not contain so much
miscellaneous stuff unrelated to session management.

Actually none. Two extra patches are required, but one of them is
shared with the various prefs editor, and the other is a cleanup.

Might be a nice idea to post the required patch(s) again so
Nick/Enrico don't have to search the archives

Cheers
Lex

Post by Eugene Arshinov
--
E-gards: Jimmy
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[Dimitar Zhekov]

On Tue, 25 Jan 2011 10:12:05 +1100

Post by Lex Trotman

Post by Dimitar Zhekov
To answer both a and b, nobody wins. For the preferences and project
files, the single instance sm works like hybernate-and-restore: each
instance preserves it's own configuration, and neither geany.conf nor
the project files are saved.

Oh ok, its unchanged wins :-), ie thats what is left in the
prefs/project files for use by any new instance started up. Or
another way to look at it is the most recently closed Geany wins,
assuming a user eventually closes one or more of the instances.

I'm not sure what "unchanged wins" means, but as you know, the projects
and settings in Geany are saved either when you edit them via the
respective dialog and confirm, or when you close an instance. The
single instance sm does not change that in any way - it's a session
saver/restorer that adheres to Geany logic, not a solver for any for
any multiply instance problems.

Post by Lex Trotman

Post by Dimitar Zhekov
(For the document files it asks if to save, of course. XSMP suggests
that a modified file may be saved into a temporary file, and then
reloaded and remarked as modified, but I have yet to see a progam
impementing THAT idea.)

For saving files, and to some extent projects, the problem is not the
I have f.txt open and modified in two instances (perhaps on different
workspaces and I've forgotten about having two). At logout the session
management makes Geany instance one pop-up a "save modified file
f.txt?" box, I say yes/no, then instance two does the same [...]

KDE will switch you to the respective workspace if needed and raise
the instance that requests interaction, IIRC.

GNOME will display the popup messages at once (again IIRC), you'll see
the messages for the current workspace, and any other workspaces that
need interaction will be "flashed" in the pager.

Xfce 4.6 does not work properly with 2+ programs that request
interaction. You'll receive a popup for one of the instances, answer it,
and then the logout will stop. When you manually close the 2nd and
subsequent instances (Save and close, or Close and answer the
save prompt), the logout will continue. Haven't checked Xfce 4.8.

(IMHO, if you modify a file in 2+ instances and close them one by one,
you will get confused anyway. And that's a border case.)

Post by Lex Trotman
BTW how does that dialog box identify the instance?

If you expect identification like "Geany-<number>" or something, it
won't be really helpful. The right thing is to raise the top-level
window of the application requesting XSMP iteraction. Normally that
should be done by the window manager.

Post by Lex Trotman
Might be a nice idea to post the required patch(s) again so
Nick/Enrico don't have to search the archives

I still have no response for the "save find settions" patch from 3 days
ago, so that seems pointless. The list really feels unresponsive. :(

[Lex Trotman]

Post by Dimitar Zhekov
On Tue, 25 Jan 2011 10:12:05 +1100

Post by Lex Trotman

Post by Dimitar Zhekov
To answer both a and b, nobody wins. For the preferences and project
files, the single instance sm works like hybernate-and-restore: each
instance preserves it's own configuration, and neither geany.conf nor
the project files are saved.

Oh ok, its unchanged wins :-), ie thats what is left in the
prefs/project files for use by any new instance started up.  Or
another way to look at it is the most recently closed Geany wins,
assuming a user eventually closes one or more of the instances.

I'm not sure what "unchanged wins" means, but as you know, the projects
and settings in Geany are saved either when you edit them via the
respective dialog and confirm, or when you close an instance. The
single instance sm does not change that in any way - it's a session
saver/restorer that adheres to Geany logic, not a solver for any for
any multiply instance problems.

Sorry, should have been clearer, you have described it correctly and
my point, as you say, is that it doesn't solve multiple instance
issues (and is not expected to)

Post by Dimitar Zhekov

Post by Lex Trotman

Post by Dimitar Zhekov
(For the document files it asks if to save, of course. XSMP suggests
that a modified file may be saved into a temporary file, and then
reloaded and remarked as modified, but I have yet to see a progam
impementing THAT idea.)

For saving files, and to some extent projects, the problem is not the
I have f.txt open and modified in two instances (perhaps on different
workspaces and I've forgotten about having two). At logout the session
management makes Geany instance one pop-up a "save modified file
f.txt?" box, I say yes/no, then instance two does the same [...]

KDE will switch you to the respective workspace if needed and raise
the instance that requests interaction, IIRC.
GNOME will display the popup messages at once (again IIRC), you'll see
the messages for the current workspace, and any other workspaces that
need interaction will be "flashed" in the pager.
Xfce 4.6 does not work properly with 2+ programs that request
interaction. You'll receive a popup for one of the instances, answer it,
and then the logout will stop. When you manually close the 2nd and
subsequent instances (Save and close, or Close and answer the
save prompt), the logout will continue. Haven't checked Xfce 4.8.

Wow, don't you like consistency, pity there isn't any :-D

Post by Dimitar Zhekov
(IMHO, if you modify a file in 2+ instances and close them one by one,
you will get confused anyway. And that's a border case.)

Yes, I'm not saying that you will do it deliberately (although some
will try) but if its possible to accidently do it someone (me?) will.

Post by Dimitar Zhekov

Post by Lex Trotman
BTW how does that dialog box identify the instance?

If you expect identification like "Geany-<number>" or something, it
won't be really helpful.

Yeah thats why I asked.

The right thing is to raise the top-level

Post by Dimitar Zhekov
window of the application requesting XSMP iteraction. Normally that
should be done by the window manager.

Sounds more useful

Post by Dimitar Zhekov

Post by Lex Trotman
Might be a nice idea to post the required patch(s) again so
Nick/Enrico don't have to search the archives

I still have no response for the "save find settions" patch from 3 days
ago, so that seems pointless. The list really feels unresponsive. :(

As discussed elsewhere, there are only 2-3 people who maintain Geany
and I suspect that they are having a break after releasing 0.20 and
0,20 plugins. I notice that no one has replied to the email where I
suggested that more volunteers would be welcome if they have the time
and discipline to assist.

Remember it takes at least half an hour per patch to get a clean
trunk, apply the patch, test it, (assuming it works) check the
formatting, write the changelog and commit so you need that sort of
time.

Cheers
Lex

Post by Dimitar Zhekov
--
E-gards: Jimmy
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[Erik de Castro Lopo]

Post by Lex Trotman
There are two issues that I see which complicate potential solutions here.
1. There is not AFAIK any common portable way to find out which
workspace Geany is running in and that a request to show a file in
Geany came from a different workspace, so deciding to run another
instance or move Geany to another workspace is going to have to be
solved for each system Geany runs on. This is probably why many
applications are not workspace aware.

Gedit does the right thing.

Erik

[Lex Trotman]

Post by Erik de Castro Lopo

Post by Lex Trotman
There are two issues that I see which complicate potential solutions here.
1. There is not AFAIK any common portable way to find out which
workspace Geany is running in and that a request to show a file in
Geany came from a different workspace, so deciding to run another
instance or move Geany to another workspace is going to have to be
solved for each system Geany runs on.  This is probably why many
applications are not workspace aware.

Gedit does the right thing.

On MS Windows? On KDE? Portable is the problem, you can always write
code for each platform and #if the correct set for the platform but
thats much more work to write and maintain.

If Geany only had the number of programmer hours that Gedit does ...

Cheers
Lex

Post by Erik de Castro Lopo
Erik
--
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Erik de Castro Lopo
http://www.mega-nerd.com/
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[Erik de Castro Lopo]

Post by Lex Trotman
On MS Windows?

Windows doesn't have workspace, or rather it does, but 99.999999%
of people don't use them. Even the vast majority of windows
developers don't use them.

Contrast that with Linux where well over 90% of people use them.
For developers, its very close to 100% that use workspaces.

Post by Lex Trotman
On KDE?

Yes, I've tested this. I reported the results of that testing
on the devel list.

Post by Lex Trotman
If Geany only had the number of programmer hours that Gedit does ...

I've tried getting patches in. The development list was at best,
slow to respond. Many of my patches were never responded to at
all. And while I was following the devel list, I was not the
only one being roundly ignored by the people with SVN commit
access.

You can't complain about lack of developer hours and then keep
development as an exclusive club for a small inner circle.

Erik

[Lex Trotman]

Post by Erik de Castro Lopo

Post by Lex Trotman
On MS Windows?

Windows doesn't have workspace, or rather it does, but 99.999999%
of people don't use them. Even the vast majority of windows
developers don't use them.
Contrast that with Linux where well over 90% of people use them.
For developers, its very close to 100% that use workspaces.

-1 me, but I do use two monitors instead :-)

I suspect your contention is a significant overstatement, but then
neither of us actually has the statistics to prove it :-)

Post by Erik de Castro Lopo

Post by Lex Trotman
On KDE?

Yes, I've tested this. I reported the results of that testing
on the devel list.

Post by Lex Trotman
If Geany only had the number of programmer hours that Gedit does ...

I've tried getting patches in. The development list was at best,
slow to respond. Many of my patches were never responded to at
all. And while I was following the devel list, I was not the
only one being roundly ignored by the people with SVN commit
access.
You can't complain about lack of developer hours and then keep
development as an exclusive club for a small inner circle.

Erik,

I'm sorry you feel that you were ignored.

Everyone in the Geany "inner circle" as you call it, only works on
Geany in their own time, and they all have other things to do, they
move house, they take holidays, their internet goes down (all happened
in 2010)... So yes, response time can be variable, and busy people
don't always read all the messages in a conversation etc, its the
nature of a small project.

If you have constructive suggestions they will be welcome I'm sure,
but remember that big changes of process or code will be difficult to
have accepted due to the limited time people have to consider and
understand the proposals, and to implement and test the changes,
incremental change is the way to approach things when resources are
thin.

As to Gedit, it has only one instance with multiple windows (my option
3) so many of the problems don't apply, but refactoring Geany to
support multiple top levels is a big change.

Cheers
Lex

Post by Erik de Castro Lopo
Erik
--
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Erik de Castro Lopo
http://www.mega-nerd.com/
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[Thomas Martitz]

Post by Lex Trotman
Erik,
I'm sorry you feel that you were ignored.
Everyone in the Geany "inner circle" as you call it, only works on
Geany in their own time, and they all have other things to do, they
move house, they take holidays, their internet goes down (all happened
in 2010)... So yes, response time can be variable, and busy people
don't always read all the messages in a conversation etc, its the
nature of a small project.
If you have constructive suggestions they will be welcome I'm sure,
but remember that big changes of process or code will be difficult to
have accepted due to the limited time people have to consider and
understand the proposals, and to implement and test the changes,
incremental change is the way to approach things when resources are
thin.

Increasing the number of core developers (i.e. giving more people commit
access) can solve this problem. Geany isn't short of willing contributes.

Best regards.

[Erik de Castro Lopo]

Post by Lex Trotman
Everyone in the Geany "inner circle" as you call it, only works on
Geany in their own time, and they all have other things to do,

I'm well aware of how much time and energy an open source project can
suck up. I'm the main maintainer of two widely used FOSS libraries,
which i only work on in my own time.

Post by Lex Trotman
they
move house, they take holidays, their internet goes down (all happened
in 2010)... So yes, response time can be variable, and busy people
don't always read all the messages in a conversation etc, its the
nature of a small project.
If you have constructive suggestions they will be welcome I'm sure,
but remember that big changes of process or code will be difficult to
have accepted due to the limited time people have to consider and
understand the proposals, and to implement and test the changes,
incremental change is the way to approach things when resources are
thin.

I was not actually asking for more reponsiveness for the existing
small set of developers, but rather an increase in the number of
people with commit access.

Post by Lex Trotman
As to Gedit, it has only one instance with multiple windows (my option
3) so many of the problems don't apply, but refactoring Geany to
support multiple top levels is a big change.

Unfortunately, that statement, in conjunction with the above, is in
effect saying "the project's inertia and lack of current progress
means nothing much will change".

Erik

[Lex Trotman]

Eric & Thomas,

Don't get me wrong, I agree that Geany needs more people who can test
format and commit patches and bugfixes and more people who can develop
the more major changes we have talked about in branches. I think that
Geany makes very little use of branches, even for a SVN project.

And yes the slow pace of change is frustrating (although I don't say
this too often since my own lack of time to do much more than emails
could prompt the obvious comeback :-D but I hope the emails are
helpful in the meantime)

What it needs to get this going is some offers to be maintainers and
maybe a maintenance/unstable branch so only critical fixes go directly
in trunk and unstable gets promoted after suitable testing. This can
allow commits to be checked by multiple people until the new commiters
get practice (I know how easy it is to forget the commit log, or
format wrong).

Also I believe that the project needs some planning and management for
the bigger changes. Unless the change is purely experimental its not
good to make major changes without planning and discussion, I refer to
the session management changes as an example (without in any way
criticising those who worked on them, they responded to concerns as
they were raised, but would have had a better time if some of the
problems had been addressed prior to implementation).

Whilst I am not suggesting anything near as formal as the PEP system
used by Python, the general idea of having a written description of
what the change is intended to do and how it is to be implemented
helps the implementors get their ideas straight and might point out
some of the potential pitfalls prior to starting. It also ensures
that everyone has an idea of the extent of the changes so there will
be less surprises of the "but I didn't expect it to do that" type.

Anyways I'll climb down off my soapbox now :-)

Cheers
Lex

Post by Erik de Castro Lopo

Post by Lex Trotman
Everyone in the Geany "inner circle" as you call it, only works on
Geany in their own time, and they all have other things to do,

I'm well aware of how much time and energy an open source project can
suck up. I'm the main maintainer of two widely used FOSS libraries,
which i only work on in my own time.

Post by Lex Trotman
they
move house, they take holidays, their internet goes down (all happened
in 2010)...  So yes, response time can be variable, and busy people
don't always read all the messages in a conversation etc, its the
nature of a small project.
If you have constructive suggestions they will be welcome I'm sure,
but remember that big changes of process or code will be difficult to
have accepted due to the limited time people have to consider and
understand the proposals, and to implement and test the changes,
incremental change is the way to approach things when resources are
thin.

I was not actually asking for more reponsiveness for the existing
small set of developers, but rather an increase in the number of
people with commit access.

Post by Lex Trotman
As to Gedit, it has only one instance with multiple windows (my option
3) so many of the problems don't apply, but refactoring Geany to
support multiple top levels is a big change.

Unfortunately, that statement, in conjunction with the above, is in
effect saying "the project's inertia and lack of current progress
means nothing much will change".
Erik
--
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Erik de Castro Lopo
http://www.mega-nerd.com/

[Randy Kramer]

Post by Lex Trotman
3. It is (I think) a big change to allow Geany to have one instance
with multiple top level windows, how to handle different projects in
different top levels? how to handle different preferences in
different top levels?
So AFAICT there is no clear solution.
My personal choice would be 3 because it would then also support
multiple monitor setups, but I believe that there is a lot of usage
issues to resolve and a LOT of work involved.
Any good ideas welcome.

No good ideas, but I'll continue to express biased opinions ;-)

I'm not sure I fully understand your number 3, but if that means I can
run only one instance of Geany (with multiple top level windows). I
would be concerned.

It sounds like the way Iceweasel / Firefox is set up, at least as of
version 3.0.6, which is what I'm using.

My problem with that is that if something happens to that one instance
of Iceweasel (with several top level windows open on different
desktops), I lose all the open pages. (For that reason, I continue to
use konqueror as my primary web browser--there are pages for which
doesn't work, but when one instance dies (hangs or crashes), I lose
only the open pages on that instance.

(I feel this way despite the fact that Iceweasel allows me to easily
reopen all those pages (and, I've finally (recently) learned how to do
the same thing with konqueror in conjunction with a cron job...))

I don't expect Geany to hang / crash, but 11 years or so ago I was told
that Linux never crashes, but I've managed to prove those people wrong
(not intentionally, and to my detriment). .-)

Randy Kramer

[Lex Trotman]

Post by Randy Kramer

Post by Lex Trotman
3. It is (I think) a big change to allow Geany to have one instance
with multiple top level windows, how to handle different projects in
different top levels? how to handle different preferences in
different top levels?
So AFAICT there is no clear solution.
My personal choice would be 3 because it would then also support
multiple monitor setups, but I believe that there is a lot of usage
issues to resolve and a LOT of work involved.
Any good ideas welcome.

No good ideas, but I'll continue to express biased opinions ;-)

Every opinion is biased, except mine :-)

Post by Randy Kramer
I'm not sure I fully understand your number 3, but if that means I can
run only one instance of Geany (with multiple top level windows). I
would be concerned.
It sounds like the way Iceweasel / Firefox is set up, at least as of
version 3.0.6, which is what I'm using.
My problem with that is that if something happens to that one instance
of Iceweasel (with several top level windows open on different
desktops), I lose all the open pages.  (For that reason, I continue to
use konqueror as my primary web browser--there are pages for which
doesn't work, but when one instance dies (hangs or crashes), I lose
only the open pages on that instance.
(I feel this way despite the fact that Iceweasel allows me to easily
reopen all those pages (and, I've finally (recently) learned how to do
the same thing with konqueror in conjunction with a cron job...))
I don't expect Geany to hang / crash, but 11 years or so ago I was told
that Linux never crashes, but I've managed to prove those people wrong
(not intentionally, and to my detriment). .-)

Save early, save often :-) after all if the file isn't on disk no
other tools can access it :-)

Your description of single instance, multi window is correct, yes
there is a slightly enhanced risk, but IMH(unbiased)O compared to the
problems with multiple instances this is small, see my scenario on
another post on this thread. No software can prevent the same file in
two instances being different. With a single instance all windows see
the same (possibly modified) version of the file.

Whereas multiple instances do not know about each other and chaos
reigns, the single instance knows about its multiple windows, and so
can save multiple sets of prefs/projects etc.

The alternative (to continue your browser theme) is the Chrome
approach where each tab (Geany top level) is a separate process but
there is a front end controller process that manages them. But Chrome
doesn't have to contend with Geany's problem of synchronizing
modifications to multiple instances of a file.

Cheers
Lex

Post by Randy Kramer
Randy Kramer
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[Krzysztof Żelechowski]

Post by Lex Trotman
Your description of single instance, multi window is correct, yes
there is a slightly enhanced risk, but IMH(unbiased)O compared to the
problems with multiple instances this is small, see my scenario on
another post on this thread. No software can prevent the same file in
two instances being different. With a single instance all windows see
the same (possibly modified) version of the file.

Open Office, for example, can: all other instances are either detached (as in stationery) or read-only.

Chris

[Randy Kramer]

Post by Krzysztof Żelechowski

Post by Lex Trotman
Your description of single instance, multi window is correct, yes
there is a slightly enhanced risk, but IMH(unbiased)O compared to
the problems with multiple instances this is small, see my scenario
on another post on this thread. No software can prevent the same
file in two instances being different. With a single instance all
windows see the same (possibly modified) version of the file.

Open Office, for example, can: all other instances are either
detached (as in stationery) or read-only.

Krzysztof,

Is that on Windows or Linux? (I can imagine differences between them,
and rarely use Open Office myself.)

Randy Kramer

[Krzysztof Żelechowski]

Post by Randy Kramer

Post by Krzysztof Żelechowski

Post by Lex Trotman
Your description of single instance, multi window is correct, yes
there is a slightly enhanced risk, but IMH(unbiased)O compared to
the problems with multiple instances this is small, see my scenario
on another post on this thread. No software can prevent the same
file in two instances being different. With a single instance all
windows see the same (possibly modified) version of the file.

Open Office, for example, can: all other instances are either
detached (as in stationery) or read-only.

Krzysztof,
Is that on Windows or Linux? (I can imagine differences between them,
and rarely use Open Office myself.)

I have seen that on Windows.

[Lex Trotman]

Post by Krzysztof Żelechowski

Post by Randy Kramer

Post by Krzysztof Żelechowski

Post by Lex Trotman
Your description of single instance, multi window is correct, yes
there is a slightly enhanced risk, but IMH(unbiased)O compared to
the problems with multiple instances this is small, see my scenario
on another post on this thread.  No software can prevent the same
file in two instances being different.  With a single instance all
windows see the same (possibly modified) version of the file.

Open Office, for example, can: all other instances are either
detached (as in stationery) or read-only.

Krzysztof,
Is that on Windows or Linux?  (I can imagine differences between them,
and rarely use Open Office myself.)

I have seen that on Windows.

On Linux OOO is a single instance multiple window application. And I
can't get it to load the same document in more than one window anyway,
it just raises the window where the document is already open?

Cheers
Lex

Post by Krzysztof Żelechowski
_______________________________________________
Geany mailing list
http://lists.uvena.de/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geany

[Krzysztof Żelechowski]

Post by Lex Trotman

Post by Krzysztof Żelechowski

Post by Randy Kramer

Post by Krzysztof Żelechowski

Post by Lex Trotman
Your description of single instance, multi window is correct, yes
there is a slightly enhanced risk, but IMH(unbiased)O compared to
the problems with multiple instances this is small, see my scenario
on another post on this thread. No software can prevent the same
file in two instances being different. With a single instance all
windows see the same (possibly modified) version of the file.

Open Office, for example, can: all other instances are either
detached (as in stationery) or read-only.

Krzysztof,
Is that on Windows or Linux? (I can imagine differences between them,
and rarely use Open Office myself.)

I have seen that on Windows.

On Linux OOO is a single instance multiple window application. And I
can't get it to load the same document in more than one window anyway,
it just raises the window where the document is already open?

You run the other copy of OpenOffice on another workstation.

Chris

[Lex Trotman]

Post by Krzysztof Żelechowski

Post by Lex Trotman

Post by Krzysztof Żelechowski

Post by Randy Kramer

Post by Krzysztof Żelechowski

Post by Lex Trotman
Your description of single instance, multi window is correct, yes
there is a slightly enhanced risk, but IMH(unbiased)O compared to
the problems with multiple instances this is small, see my scenario
on another post on this thread.  No software can prevent the same
file in two instances being different.  With a single instance all
windows see the same (possibly modified) version of the file.

Open Office, for example, can: all other instances are either
detached (as in stationery) or read-only.

Krzysztof,
Is that on Windows or Linux?  (I can imagine differences between them,
and rarely use Open Office myself.)

I have seen that on Windows.

On Linux OOO is a single instance multiple window application. And I
can't get it to load the same document in more than one window anyway,
it just raises the window where the document is already open?

You run the other copy of OpenOffice on another workstation.
Chris

Ok, understand. OOq puts a lock file in the directory for each file
thats open, thats how it prohibits multi-edit.

Thats Ok for a document editor, but I'm not so sure for a development
editor where potentially lots of files are open. And the performance
hit on remote files is potentially significant. Users editing remote
files are already complaining about performance. And we then have the
problem of removing lock files when Geany quits or crashes. That
means blocking closing Geany until lock files are removed which could
be a problem again on remote filesystems.

Cheers
Lex

[Krzysztof Żelechowski]

Post by Lex Trotman
Ok, understand. OOq puts a lock file in the directory for each file
thats open, thats how it prohibits multi-edit.
Thats Ok for a document editor, but I'm not so sure for a development
editor where potentially lots of files are open. And the performance
hit on remote files is potentially significant. Users editing remote
files are already complaining about performance. And we then have the
problem of removing lock files when Geany quits or crashes. That
means blocking closing Geany until lock files are removed which could
be a problem again on remote filesystems.

First of all, proper use of a version control system should eliminate the need to edit networked files in Geany, unless the developer sits on a thin client — but then either the network is good enough or nothing works.

So Geany could limit its locking facilities to local files or instruct the developer about proper procedures.

IMHO,
Chris

[Lex Trotman]

Post by Lex Trotman
Ok, understand. OOq puts a lock file in the directory for each file
thats open, thats how it prohibits multi-edit.
Thats Ok for a document editor, but I'm not so sure for a development
editor where potentially lots of files are open. And the performance
hit on remote files is potentially significant. Users editing remote
files are already complaining about performance. And we then have the
problem of removing lock files when Geany quits or crashes. That
means blocking closing Geany until lock files are removed which could
be a problem again on remote filesystems.

First of all, proper use of a version control system should eliminate the need to edit networked files in Geany, unless the developer sits on a thin client -- but then either the network is good enough or nothing works.
So Geany could limit its locking facilities to local files or instruct the developer about proper procedures.
IMHO,
Chris

Totally agree, except some people use Geany to edit web files over FTP
to their server. To change to a VCS their service provider would need
to change.

Cheers
Lex

[Krzysztof Żelechowski]

Post by Lex Trotman

First of all, proper use of a version control system should eliminate the need to edit networked files in Geany, unless the developer sits on a thin client -- but then either the network is good enough or nothing works.
So Geany could limit its locking facilities to local files or instruct the developer about proper procedures.
IMHO,
Chris

Totally agree, except some people use Geany to edit web files over FTP
to their server. To change to a VCS their service provider would need
to change.

Not necessarily, since the entire site can (and if you create static content from templates, must) be uploaded in batch and the development files can be maintained elsewhere. But I agree it may cause too much overhead with petty projects.

I was told by Geany documentation that Geany does not handle URL. There is no interface for that in Geany’s file requester. When Dolphin passes a remote file to Geany, Geany opens a temporary file. So I can see no way to actually do that, unless you mount a FTP directory into kernel, which looks rather suicidal to me.

Confusedly,
Chris

[Colomban Wendling]

Post by Krzysztof Żelechowski

Post by Lex Trotman

First of all, proper use of a version control system should eliminate the need to edit networked files in Geany, unless the developer sits on a thin client -- but then either the network is good enough or nothing works.
So Geany could limit its locking facilities to local files or instruct the developer about proper procedures.
IMHO,
Chris

Totally agree, except some people use Geany to edit web files over FTP
to their server. To change to a VCS their service provider would need
to change.

Not necessarily, since the entire site can (and if you create static content from templates, must) be uploaded in batch and the development files can be maintained elsewhere. But I agree it may cause too much overhead with petty projects.
I was told by Geany documentation that Geany does not handle URL. There is no interface for that in Geany’s file requester. When Dolphin passes a remote file to Geany, Geany opens a temporary file. So I can see no way to actually do that, unless you mount a FTP directory into kernel, which looks rather suicidal to me.

Using GIO-fuse :) It mounts GIO mounts using fuse, so they are available
as true local files.

cheers,
Colomban

[Krzysztof Żelechowski]

Post by Colomban Wendling

Post by Krzysztof Żelechowski
I was told by Geany documentation that Geany does not handle URL. There is no interface for that in Geany’s file requester. When Dolphin passes a remote file to Geany, Geany opens a temporary file. So I can see no way to actually do that, unless you mount a FTP directory into kernel, which looks rather suicidal to me.

Using GIO-fuse :) It mounts GIO mounts using fuse, so they are available
as true local files.

Whatever the name, I do not believe it is a good thing.

Sorry for the noise,
Chris

[Randy Kramer]

Post by Lex Trotman

Post by Krzysztof Żelechowski

Post by Randy Kramer

Post by Krzysztof Żelechowski

Post by Lex Trotman
Your description of single instance, multi window is correct,
yes there is a slightly enhanced risk, but IMH(unbiased)O
compared to the problems with multiple instances this is
small, see my scenario on another post on this thread.  No
software can prevent the same file in two instances being
different.  With a single instance all windows see the same
(possibly modified) version of the file.

Open Office, for example, can: all other instances are either
detached (as in stationery) or read-only.

Krzysztof,
Is that on Windows or Linux?  (I can imagine differences between
them, and rarely use Open Office myself.)

I have seen that on Windows.

On Linux OOO is a single instance multiple window application. And I
can't get it to load the same document in more than one window
anyway, it just raises the window where the document is already open?

Yes, I forgot about that behavior (that I've seen in other
apps)--sometimes quite useful, sometimes very annoying.

Randy Kramer

[Thomas Martitz]

Post by Randy Kramer
Yes, I forgot about that behavior (that I've seen in other
apps)--sometimes quite useful, sometimes very annoying.

Very reasonable behavor if you ask me. For both users and developers. It
solves the "same file in multiple instances" problem quite easily.

Best regards.

[Randy Kramer]

Post by Thomas Martitz

Post by Randy Kramer
Yes, I forgot about that behavior (that I've seen in other
apps)--sometimes quite useful, sometimes very annoying.

Very reasonable behavor if you ask me. For both users and developers.
It solves the "same file in multiple instances" problem quite easily.

One annoyance is if you want to have a 2nd instance of the file so that
you can work in two places in the file. (Some editors allow you to do
a split pane or similar to solve that problem, but not all.)

[Thomas Martitz]

Post by Randy Kramer
One annoyance is if you want to have a 2nd instance of the file so that
you can work in two places in the file. (Some editors allow you to do
a split pane or similar to solve that problem, but not all.)

Concurrent instances is probably not the way to achieve that. Is there
any program in the world which allows this?

Best regards.

[Randy Kramer]

Post by Thomas Martitz

Post by Randy Kramer
One annoyance is if you want to have a 2nd instance of the file so
that you can work in two places in the file. (Some editors allow
you to do a split pane or similar to solve that problem, but not
all.)

Concurrent instances is probably not the way to achieve that. Is
there any program in the world which allows this?

Allows what? Opening the same file in different tabs of the same
instance of an editor? Opening the same file in two different
instances of an editor?

Many that I've used.

I don't do it often--I'd have to test again to confirm which of the
current editors I use do that.

Randy Kramer

[Thomas Martitz]

Post by Randy Kramer

Post by Thomas Martitz

Post by Randy Kramer
One annoyance is if you want to have a 2nd instance of the file so
that you can work in two places in the file. (Some editors allow
you to do a split pane or similar to solve that problem, but not
all.)

Concurrent instances is probably not the way to achieve that. Is
there any program in the world which allows this?

Allows what? Opening the same file in different tabs of the same
instance of an editor? Opening the same file in two different
instances of an editor?
Many that I've used.

This thread is about multiple instances, so the latter. Can you name a
program? I have never seen this, unless my definition of "work in two
places in the file" differs from yours.

Best regards.

[Randy Kramer]

Post by Thomas Martitz

Post by Randy Kramer

Post by Thomas Martitz

Post by Randy Kramer
One annoyance is if you want to have a 2nd instance of the file
so that you can work in two places in the file. (Some editors
allow you to do a split pane or similar to solve that problem,
but not all.)

Concurrent instances is probably not the way to achieve that. Is
there any program in the world which allows this?

Allows what? Opening the same file in different tabs of the same
instance of an editor? Opening the same file in two different
instances of an editor?
Many that I've used.

This thread is about multiple instances, so the latter. Can you name
a program? I have never seen this, unless my definition of "work in
two places in the file" differs from yours.

Ok, from Neil's response to this thread, I see that there is a
misunderstanding somewhere--I did not intend to say that the changes
would be visible in both (or all) instances of the editor.

But, that doesn't keep me from working on them just fine.

(And, if I save the file in one instance of the editor after making
changes, when I go to that file in an other instance of the editor, I'm
warned that the file on disk doesn't match the one I'm about to edit,
and I'm prompted to do things like reload the file. (Nedit is an
example.))

Sorry if I created some confusion.

Randy Kramer

[Jon Senior]

On Wed, 26 Jan 2011 20:23:50 -0500

Post by Randy Kramer
Ok, from Neil's response to this thread, I see that there is a
misunderstanding somewhere--I did not intend to say that the changes
would be visible in both (or all) instances of the editor.
But, that doesn't keep me from working on them just fine.
(And, if I save the file in one instance of the editor after making
changes, when I go to that file in an other instance of the editor,
I'm warned that the file on disk doesn't match the one I'm about to
edit, and I'm prompted to do things like reload the file. (Nedit is
an example.))

geany will do the same (I've made use of this in the past. Open a log
file in geany then re-run the code that generates the file and geany
will ask me if I want to reload the file). As I understand things, you
can force a new instance of geany, and you could open a file in both
instances. Personally if I want to look at one part of a file and edit
another, I prefer to use something passive like "less", which is far
less prone to accidental overwriting.

Jon

[Lex Trotman]

Post by Jon Senior
On Wed, 26 Jan 2011 20:23:50 -0500

Post by Randy Kramer
Ok, from Neil's response to this thread, I see that there is a
misunderstanding somewhere--I did not intend to say that the changes
would be visible in both (or all) instances of the editor.
But, that doesn't keep me from working on them just fine.
(And, if I save the file in one instance of the editor after making
changes, when I go to that file in an other instance of the editor,
I'm warned that the file on disk doesn't match the one I'm about to
edit, and I'm prompted to do things like reload the file.  (Nedit is
an example.))

geany will do the same (I've made use of this in the past. Open a log
file in geany then re-run the code that generates the file and geany
will ask me if I want to reload the file). As I understand things, you
can force a new instance of geany, and you could open a file in both
instances. Personally if I want to look at one part of a file and edit
another, I prefer to use something passive like "less", which is far
less prone to accidental overwriting.
Jon

Hi Jon,

You don't have to forgo Geany if you only want to read the file in
another instance, just set Document->read only and you don't have to
accept anything less (boom boom :-).

The problems are when editing prefs/projects/files in more than one instance.

Cheers
Lex

Post by Jon Senior
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[Randy Kramer]

Post by Randy Kramer
Ok, from Neil's response to this thread, I see that there is a

Oops, sorry, that was Lex's response--I guess I had my mind in the
scintilla world...

Randy Kramer

[Lex Trotman]

Post by Thomas Martitz

Post by Randy Kramer
One annoyance is if you want to have a 2nd instance of the file so
that you can work in two places in the file.  (Some editors allow
you to do a split pane or similar to solve that problem, but not
all.)

Concurrent instances is probably not the way to achieve that. Is
there any program in the world which allows this?

Allows what?  Opening the same file in different tabs of the same
instance of an editor?  Opening the same file in two different
instances of an editor?
Many that I've used.
I don't do it often--I'd have to test again to confirm which of the
current editors I use do that.
Randy Kramer

Hi Randy,

An Emacs instance of course allows the same file to be edited in more
than one top level window and the edits appear in the others. In fact
I am occasionally moved to go back to Emacs for just this capability,
editing definitions at the top of a file and functions using them at
the bottom of the file.

I don't know of any editors where editing the file in multiple
instances allows the edits to show up in the other instances.

Dumb editors allow you to edit the file in multiple instances and the
last saved just overwrites previous saves, not really what we want
since I for one will almost certainly do it accidentally :-(

Cheers
Lex

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[Randy Kramer]

Post by Lex Trotman

Post by Thomas Martitz

Post by Randy Kramer
One annoyance is if you want to have a 2nd instance of the file
so that you can work in two places in the file.  (Some editors
allow you to do a split pane or similar to solve that problem,
but not all.)

Concurrent instances is probably not the way to achieve that. Is
there any program in the world which allows this?

Allows what?  Opening the same file in different tabs of the same
instance of an editor?  Opening the same file in two different
instances of an editor?
Many that I've used.
I don't do it often--I'd have to test again to confirm which of the
current editors I use do that.
Randy Kramer

Hi Randy,
An Emacs instance of course allows the same file to be edited in more
than one top level window and the edits appear in the others. In
fact I am occasionally moved to go back to Emacs for just this
capability, editing definitions at the top of a file and functions
using them at the bottom of the file.
I don't know of any editors where editing the file in multiple
instances allows the edits to show up in the other instances.

No, sorry, I didn't mean to say that any did. But they do typically
warn you when the file on disk doesn't match the file you're working on
(when the instance of the editor gets the focus).

Post by Lex Trotman
Dumb editors allow you to edit the file in multiple instances and the
last saved just overwrites previous saves, not really what we want
since I for one will almost certainly do it accidentally :-(

Maybe I've just done it accidentally so often that I've developed habits
(knock on wood) to avoid the problem. (Primary habit being, always hit
<ctrl> s after doing almost anything (and before moving the focus away
from an editor).)

Anyway, like I say, sorry if I created some confusion.

Randy Kramer

[Krzysztof Żelechowski]

Post by Randy Kramer
Maybe I've just done it accidentally so often that I've developed habits
(knock on wood) to avoid the problem. (Primary habit being, always hit
<ctrl> s after doing almost anything (and before moving the focus away
from an editor).)

That does not help if you edit the same file in two independent windows and the editors do not monitor the modification time.

IMHO,
Chris

[Randy Kramer]

Post by Lex Trotman

Post by Randy Kramer

Post by Lex Trotman
3. It is (I think) a big change to allow Geany to have one
instance with multiple top level windows, how to handle different
projects in different top levels? how to handle different
preferences in different top levels?
So AFAICT there is no clear solution.
My personal choice would be 3 because it would then also support
multiple monitor setups, but I believe that there is a lot of
usage issues to resolve and a LOT of work involved.
Any good ideas welcome.

No good ideas, but I'll continue to express biased opinions ;-)

Every opinion is biased, except mine :-)

Post by Randy Kramer
I'm not sure I fully understand your number 3, but if that means I
can run only one instance of Geany (with multiple top level
windows). I would be concerned.
It sounds like the way Iceweasel / Firefox is set up, at least as
of version 3.0.6, which is what I'm using.
My problem with that is that if something happens to that one
instance of Iceweasel (with several top level windows open on
different desktops), I lose all the open pages.  (For that reason,
I continue to use konqueror as my primary web browser--there are
pages for which doesn't work, but when one instance dies (hangs or
crashes), I lose only the open pages on that instance.
(I feel this way despite the fact that Iceweasel allows me to
easily reopen all those pages (and, I've finally (recently) learned
how to do the same thing with konqueror in conjunction with a cron
job...))
I don't expect Geany to hang / crash, but 11 years or so ago I was
told that Linux never crashes, but I've managed to prove those
people wrong (not intentionally, and to my detriment). .-)

Save early, save often :-) after all if the file isn't on disk no
other tools can access it :-)
Your description of single instance, multi window is correct, yes
there is a slightly enhanced risk, but IMH(unbiased)O compared to the
problems with multiple instances this is small, see my scenario on
another post on this thread. No software can prevent the same file
in two instances being different. With a single instance all windows
see the same (possibly modified) version of the file.
Whereas multiple instances do not know about each other and chaos
reigns, the single instance knows about its multiple windows, and so
can save multiple sets of prefs/projects etc.
The alternative (to continue your browser theme) is the Chrome
approach where each tab (Geany top level) is a separate process but
there is a front end controller process that manages them. But
Chrome doesn't have to contend with Geany's problem of synchronizing
modifications to multiple instances of a file.

Thanks for the response!

I have the same file open in multiple windows (on different desktops) so
rarely that it is not something I worry about. When I have the same
file open more than once, it is almost always on the same desktop.

(I do have some files that I use related to work on more than one
desktop, but I keep those on a desktop related to only that type of
file, and go to that desktop to read / edit them.)

So, I guess I'm saying I'm not in a position (atm) to comment on the
difficulties (or workarounds) related to the same file open on
different desktops / instances.

Randy Kramer

[Dimitar Zhekov]

Hi,

On the single single instance, multi window: it has it's own problems.

For example, when you stop Geany, it'll have to save in geany.conf the
[positions and] desktops of all open windows, which is unportable. And
of course, under Windows, multi-window is limited to a single desktop
(see "SetThreadDesktop"), so multiply instances are desirable.

Post by Lex Trotman
Whereas multiple instances do not know about each other and chaos
reigns, the single instance knows about its multiple windows, and so
can save multiple sets of prefs/projects etc.

Except that we don't know which set of settings has "priority" and
applies to the newly open windows, so we're back to square one. NEdit
had global shared options and a smaller set of per-window options, but
that'll be hell to implement.

[Dimitar Zhekov]

On Sat, 22 Jan 2011 22:49:47 +0100

Post by Julien Nicoulaud
I'm using GNOME with several workspaces, and there's a behaviour I find
quite annoying: if you have an instance of Geany running in a workspace and
you open a file in another workspace, it just opens the file in the already
running instance and switches you back to the workspace. [...]

That was discussed several times, and implemented once, but various
issues came out, and the patch was reverted.

Post by Julien Nicoulaud
Anyway, I wrote a little wrapper script that detects if there's no Geany
https://github.com/nicoulaj/dotfiles/blob/master/bin/geany [...]

You can let Geany do this check by using the --socket parameter, which
is also required if you want separate instances. The attached
wrapper script is equivalent to the former in-Geany implementation.

[Julien Nicoulaud]

Post by Dimitar Zhekov
On Sat, 22 Jan 2011 22:49:47 +0100

Post by Julien Nicoulaud
I'm using GNOME with several workspaces, and there's a behaviour I find
quite annoying: if you have an instance of Geany running in a workspace

and

Post by Julien Nicoulaud
you open a file in another workspace, it just opens the file in the

already

Post by Julien Nicoulaud
running instance and switches you back to the workspace. [...]

That was discussed several times, and implemented once, but various
issues came out, and the patch was reverted.

Post by Julien Nicoulaud
Anyway, I wrote a little wrapper script that detects if there's no Geany
https://github.com/nicoulaj/dotfiles/blob/master/bin/geany [...]

You can let Geany do this check by using the --socket parameter, which
is also required if you want separate instances. The attached
wrapper script is equivalent to the former in-Geany implementation.

Has this script been tested recently ? I finally took some time to try it,
and it does not seem to work for me.

Post by Dimitar Zhekov
--
E-gards: Jimmy
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[Dimitar Zhekov]

On Wed, 26 Jan 2011 22:08:33 +0100

Post by Julien Nicoulaud

Post by Dimitar Zhekov

Post by Julien Nicoulaud
Anyway, I wrote a little wrapper script that detects if there's no Geany
https://github.com/nicoulaj/dotfiles/blob/master/bin/geany [...]

You can let Geany do this check by using the --socket parameter, which
is also required if you want separate instances. The attached
wrapper script is equivalent to the former in-Geany implementation.

Has this script been tested recently ? I finally took some time to try it,
and it does not seem to work for me.

I'm using it all the time. A simpler command is listed in the
manual: http://www.geany.org/manual/current/, --socket-file.