Saturday Morning Hack

I've heard from a number of people that the ability to jump to a file by type (Open Type), or by filename (Open File) are really important to them. To the point of being adoption blockers. Both are in the works. NetBeans has always had a Go To Type for Java (Alt/Ctrl-Shift-O), which we're now retrofitting to become a generic Goto Type facility that other languages can plug into. That means introducing a new API etc. which requires some more effort - so this isn't there for Milestone 9. However, in the meantime, I've taken the early work on that and hacked it into a Ruby-only module which will let you jump to Ruby types. It's there in the editor context menu (under Go To), bound to a different shortcut. Unlike the general Open Type which will work from any file (or even when you're in a non-source editor window), this will only work from Ruby files. You can get the module here. That's an NBM file - a netbeans module bundle - which you can install via Tools | Plugins - just switch to the Downloaded tab and point to your NBM. Click Add Plugins. (Sorry, the modules are not signed so you'll get a warning.) It will require a restart. Also, the revamped Plugin Manager is brand new and is stabilizing right now - you may run into some issues. One thing to try is to install one module at a time. You need brand new Ruby bits for this too - go to nbextras.org. Here's a screenshot of what it looks like (although this includes Java type matches, which the provided hacked module won't do) : The ability to jump to any file based only on the filename (not the path) is tracked in issue 44586, and there's been some work happening in a branch. Even though it's not done, you may find it useful in your day to day work. To get it, you can download the module here. Once done, you'll have a Goto File In Project item in your Navigate menu. The operation is faster after the first time. Finally, I've updated the TextMate snippet importer I recently discussed with some bug fixes - get the latest version here.

Date: April 21, 2007
Category: Developers

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