Re: [Nano-devel] alternative anchoring: allowing to set multiple "bookmarks"

[Marco Diego Aurélio Mesquita]

On Wed, Oct 31, 2018 at 08:17:22PM +0100, Benno Schulenberg wrote:
> 
> Op 30-10-18 om 21:25 schreef Marco Diego Aurélio Mesquita:
> > I think this can be implemented in a simpler and more powerful
> > way. Just adding a boolean member to filestruct would allow us to
> > have such functionality. I also think my suggested approach has
> > some advantages and make implementation of other features simpler:
> >   - once the line is removed, the anchor is also removed;
> > 
> >   - if lines are added before/after the anchor, the anchor is
> >   automagically moved;
> > 
> >   - multiple anchors could be set on the same buffer;
> > 
> >   - cycling through anchors or "go to next/previous anchor" would
> >   be easy to implement.
> 
> An interesting idea.  But... how often do you want to jump between
> multiple points in a file.  The anchor method is geared to what I
> actually do: I have to peek for a moment elsewhere in the file and
> then immediately want to return to where I am: set anchor, scroll
> and search elsewhere, look a bit, jump back to anchor and clear it.
> 
> So, you would have to come up with some really convincing examples
> where you need the ability to set multiple bookmarks before I will
> consider this mechanism.
> 

When editing code where multiple interdependent functions are
defined in many different places on the same file, been able to
have multiple bookmarks helps a lot. When debugging source code or
changing multiple points of the same file. When investigating call
chains. When investigating all the calls of a function or all the
points where a variable is assigned. When editing a latex document
and you want to quickly navigate between sessions. When information
relevant to a part of a file is available in multiple other parts
of the same file like big rc files or Makefiles. When splitting a
function and the split part will be far from where it was... Also
the geany and gedit's plugin for bookmarks allows multiple bookmarks
and, AFAIR, most other editors which support bookmarks do support
multiple bookmarks.

Now, most features I suggest die on the phase "please show us a good
use-case for this". So, I think I'm not really good at defending
my points. How about asking the people who want the anchor feature
if they prefer a single anchor or multiple bookmarks?