On 9-12-2015 6:21, Sven Littkowski wrote:
> The New POV-Ray Editor
>
> Since the late 80s or early 90s of the previous millennium I am enjoying
> deeply using POV-Ray. I also like the comfort the existing POV-Ray
> editor is giving to me. But still, my decades of working with POV-Ray
> give me some demands I have on the editor that I want to share with you.
> I am even a programmer, but i use Delphi (Pascal), and not C, and so I
> cannot add my own work to the editor. Alas. I really would like.
>
> 1
> The editor should be able to remember the settings, like to show a
> margin on the left side with decimal line numbers. At the moment, the
> editor cannot remember that setting.

You can have a left margin with line numbers even now. Go to Editor 
Preferences [ALT + ENTER] and go to the Misc tab. Check Show left margin 
and adapt Line numbering to your needs.

>
> 2
> Each tab needs to have a small CLOSE button (that famous "X") beside its
> file name, that is something I really really need. Each operating system
> has its own advantages and disadvantages, let's use the advantages
> please. The permanent right or middle clicking and then selection menues
> shouldn't be the only solution to close a file. I want to close a file
> (or tab) easily.

I second that.

>
> 3
> Please make it possible that we users can re-arrange the order of the
> tabs to our wishes and needs.

I second that.

>
> 4
> The file names inside the tabs could be slightly bolder if the
> associated file is a .pov file (scene main file). This could help to
> distinguish a little bit faster between main files and included files
> when searching for a specific file tab.

I second that.

>
> 5
> Please give, instead of the so limiting 16 basic colors, a true-color
> selection for the editor's preference colors. Thanks.

Not sure. May become confusing.

>
> 6
> An embedded keyword corrector alerts in real-time or on button-click on
> wrongly-spelled keywords (like "difference", "union", "object", and so
> on). I am seeing a need for that, because having POV-Ray during the
> rendering aborting on such errors, takes a lot of useless time if the
> scene is very complex. The highlighted wrongly-spelled keywords would
> then manually be corrected by the user, jumping from keyword to keyword.
> While I wrote this text, I am working on a large, complex scene, where
> the parsing alone takes almost ten minutes. I have errors, and lose so
> much time for successless parsing. If the editor can offer a first
> clean-up of the scene files, it would save so much time.

I second that.

>
> 7
> Here it comes: when opening a file (.pov or .inc), the editor should
> recognize the included files within the POV-Ray scene code and offer
> only then decently and silently an additional button, maybe inside the
> tab, to open a list window of all related files. Clicking a listed file
> name opens that file, too. This dialog can be closed with a CLOSE
> button. This list window also offers another button that opens all
> listed files. The need for such a decent listing is, that I am writing
> large scenes, and often use many include files to make the main file
> smaller. I need to open all related files that I created, but not often
> I need to open the include files POV-Ray came with.

I would like that indeed.

>
> 8
> And another useful tool would be a feature, that checks each texture or
> declared object or variable, if it is being used somewhere inside the
> scene file or files (main .pov and included .inc file). Such a feature
> could help to make large scene files (.pov or.inc) leaner. It highlights
> the block of what is nowhere needed, and the user can delete it, or the
> editor offers the automatic deletion of all of them. I self would prefer
> the user's manual deleting, that is safer. Alternatively, the user could
> highlight a part of the scene source code and have the editor checking
> just within that highlighted area for unused items this area contains.

I second that.

>
> 9
> Not a function of the editor, but a REQUIRED function of POV-Ray: a
> special switch should allow POV-Ray, instead of rendering, to create an
> .stl file output of any given POV-Ray scene. In times of 3D printing,
> this is just a must. POV-Ray gives us such an immense control over the
> scene, but what is this all good for, what are the decades of developing
> POV-Ray good for, if we cannot bring our POV-Ray scenes into the real
> world..?

That would be nice indeed.


-- 
Thomas

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