Feature: Better 'Command Line Arguments' input

stevenlovegrove commented 8 years ago

Background

In QtCreator, a 'Run Configuration' for a target application includes a 'Command Line Arguments' input box to specify a programs arguments.

Problem

For a target 'Run Configuration' with a long command line, it is very difficult to edit it's arguments within such a small input area. It is also arguably more difficult to construct the command line arguments without the functionality of a shell which is able to tab-complete filenames.

Proposal

https://github.com/stevenlovegrove/qtcreator/commit/ece46f031994bb6ac5bc0c3e0786ce7da66cec7a contains a simple patch which changes the 'Command Line Arguments' FancyLineEdit input box to a multiline QPlainTextEdit. My proposal is to incorporate filename tab-completion into something which operates similarly to this box (which may already exist in the code-base), as well as any other niceties already found in FancyLineEdit, and try to get this merged upstream.

Implementation and review:

Should be clean implementation for inclusion into upstream QtCreator.
Code must be compatible with the QT Opensource licence.
As such, the code must be made publicly available.
Follow https://wiki.qt.io/Qt_Contribution_Guidelines and submit patch for review.
Make best efforts to get the patch merged.

_See https://wiki.qt.io/Building_Qt_Creator_from_Git for instructions on building QtCreator from Source._

Tests

Filename completion must work for absolute and relative paths
Must work on Windows, Linux and Max OSX
Milestones
First pass implementation
Receive feedback and apply modifications
Prepare code for merge upstream and submit to Qt
Incorporate feedback from Qt maintainers

prodoelmit commented 8 years ago

That's definitely a great feature. Should it behave differently on Windows (cmd-style) and others (bash-style)?

For bash-style it's required to have a field where possible completions would show.

stevenlovegrove commented 8 years ago

I'm imagining that it will look a lot like the completion of #includes within QtCreator's main editor, rooted from the run configuration working directory. In that case, a drop-down box appears at the carat with files containing the given prefix.

I don't know if completing things other than filenames makes sense - it may be useful to offer tab-completion of historic arguments on a per-argument basis - what do you think?

For example:

Previous entries for this target (potentially different run configurations)

prog -a somea -b argb -c argc1
prog -b argb -c argc2
prog -a somea -c argc3

Might lead to the following tab-completion sequence

where <tab>(options) listed in dropdown, tab completing common prefx.

prog -<tab>(-a, -b, -c) prog -c a<tab>(argb,argc1,argc2,argc3,antelope.txt,aardvark.dat) prog -c arg<tab>(arga,argb,argc1,argc2,argc3)

stevenlovegrove / qtcreator