Re: [Gretl-devel] foreign script editing
On Tue, 11 Jul 2017, Summers, Peter wrote:
Allin et al,
In my playing around with various scripts in Julia, octave and now
python, I've come up with a sort of "wish list" for gretl's script
editor. All of these refer to editing a script in one of those
languages (e.g., via "script files > New script > Python script"),
not via use of a "foreign" block in the main gretl script editor.
In no particular order:
1. Currently it seems that only one foreign script can be open
at once. Could subsequent scripts open in a new tab like what
happen in the gretl script editor?
Well, as many scripts as you like of whatever sort can be opened in
separate windows, but it's true that the tabbed editor is currently
only available for native scripts. Maybe that could be extended.
2. Related to this, if I'm editing a Python script and want to
open another one, the file search dialogue defaults to looking
for *.inp files. It's easy enough to change that, but could that
default to the type of script currently being edited?
I guess that wouldn't be too difficult, I'll take a look.
3. It seems that only gretl scripts support smart indenting. Can
that be generalized?
That's a good deal more difficult. Inside gretl, we know gretl
syntax, and therefore what sort of statements call for increased or
reduced indentation. For foreign scripts, not so much. However, I
suppose it's possible that gtksourceview *.lang files contain some
info on this; again, I'll take a look.
I realize that these things may all have different degrees of
difficulty, and none are critical IMO. However it occurred to me
that one potential way to expose more people to gretl could be as
a front-end to one or more of these other languages. In my own
case, as I was going through the process of setting up Atom/Juno
for Julila, I thought "hey, why can't I just use gretl's Julia
editor?".
Yes, good point. For my part I generally find it less painful to use
Stata via gretl's "foreign" apparatus than directly ;-)
Allin