There are four ‘index.html’s, I don’t know which to click!
Another idea for a text editor/IDE feature along the lines of my previous suggestion on keeping track of things when programming: where you’ve got files from two or more different projects open at once (happens a lot for me as clients phone in asking for quick changes), why not colour-code the file tabs based on the project they’re in?
With a colour-blind brother I’m aware that colour-coding can be awkward, so perhaps some other visual aid should be added too, such as a simple number/abbreviation/symbol in front of the file name to further differentiate. Here’s an idea with the colours based on RadRails (sorry, for a quick idea in a blog post you don’t get the symbols too):
Assign each project a colour and symbol as you create it and in theory at least you can then more easily tell which of the two tabs labelled’application_controller.rb’ it is you want to click on. It would certainly be easier than either clicking on every file tab with the same name until you get the right one, or hovering slowly over each to reveal the full path to the file and figure it out from there.
July 28th, 2006 at 12:13 pm
…or include the name of the directory the file’s in, eg. ilovegoats\index.html
or have different projects in different windows.
July 28th, 2006 at 3:58 pm
Directory’s no good - in a Rails app for example you’d still just have controllers/application_controller.rb
Different projects in different windows is a bit awkward too, but potentially better than the current way in some respects. What if you’re copying code between projects? It’s still easier to have them tabbed in the same place, just need a bit more differentiation.
Actually, if you modify your first idea and make it ProjectName/filename it’d do the trick. I still want pretty colours though