Overview

4DPop QuickOpen is entirely inspired by the excellent DevQuickOpen shared on Github by Cannon Smith. The goal of this reinterpretation is to make it a component and to use to the maximum the new possibilities of the project mode and the language of 4D.

So the description is consistent with that of the inspiration 😉 :

(4DPop) Quick Open is a development tool with the major goal of quickly opening forms, methods, classes, etc. in 4D and is inspired by Xcode's Quickly Open or macOS' Spotlight features. Beyond that, it also handles the creation and opening of documentation and a few smaller things.

The Quick Open window can be opened in two ways:

1. By pressing Option-Space on macOS or Control-Space on Windows.
   This means that an event manager must be running (see Installation below).

2. If the 4DPop component is installed, by clicking on its icon in the 4DPop palette
   

   

📌 The 4DPop component is not mandatory for QuickOpen to be fully operational

🆕 What's new!

Action shortcuts now available. Select one and 4DPop QuickOpen do the work!

And more, you can register, very easily, your own actions from the host database or from a component to run code or display a form!

I strongly encourage you to enrich this project through pull request. This can only benefit the 4D developer community.

Enjoy the 4th dimension

Features

Note: These are the same as in the original Cannon development…

• The search starts from 3 characters entered (if "@" is the only character entered, all objects in the project are displayed)
• You can enter for "class" or "form" or "method" to display all objects of this type.
• You can enter a folder name to see all the objects it contains.
• No need for @, the search is a "contains" search.
• A list of entries will appear, sorted by relevance

• You can keep typing or use the up/down arrow keys to select an item to open it.
• You can right-click on an item for additional options (create/edit/delete documentation, show file, edit,…).

• The list will show a paperclip on left for items that have documentation.
• The list shows the name of the object's folder (which is useful for finding the folder of an item if it is misplaced).

Shortcuts

🆕 Quick Actions

Some actions are available such as: Opening a folder, performing a syntax check or starting the web server...

To explore all actions available, just type a "$"…

To search only in actions, type "$" followed by keywords.

Embedded actions

User actions

The shared method quickOpenPushAction allows you to add your own actions.

User actions can call code or a form. See the method documentation for more information on how to define user actions.

Installation

If you want to open the QuickOpen window with a shortcut, you must install an event capture method. Otherwise, you can call from one of your methods the shared method QUICK_OPEN or use the "QuickOpen" button of the 4DPop palette if this component is installed.

The installation of the QuickOpen shortcut depends on whether you use an event-catching method in your development.

A - If you do not use an event-catching method

Create, if any, the database method On startup and enter this code:

If (Not(Is compiled mode))

    ARRAY TEXT($componentsArray; 0)
    COMPONENT LIST($componentsArray)

    If (Find in array($componentsArray; "4DPop QuickOpen")>0)

        // Installing quickOpen
        EXECUTE METHOD("quickOpenInit"; *; Formula(MODIFIERS); Formula(KEYCODE))
        ON EVENT CALL("quickOpenEventHandler"; "$quickOpenListener")

    End if 
End if

Note: This is where you can change the shortcut to invoke the quick search dialog by passing 2 additional parameters to the quickOpenInit method (see How to change the main QuickOpen shortcut)

📌 If the On Startup database method does not exist and the Execute "On Host Database Event" method of components" structure setting option is enabled, the method is automatically created at startup.

B - If you already use an event-catching method

1 - Call the init method before installing your event-catching method. Something like:

ARRAY TEXT($componentsArray; 0)
COMPONENT LIST($componentsArray)

If (Find in array($componentsArray; "4DPop QuickOpen")>0)

    // Installing quickOpen
    EXECUTE METHOD("quickOpenInit"; *; Formula(MODIFIERS); Formula(KEYCODE))

End if 

ON EVENT CALL("MY_METHOD"; "$eventHandler")

2 - Modify your event-catching method like this:

var $quickOpen : Boolean

// Only in development mode
If (Not(Is compiled mode(*)))

    // Only if the component is loaded
    ARRAY TEXT($components; 0)
    COMPONENT LIST($components)

    If (Find in array($components; "4DPop QuickOpen")>0)

        // Is it a quickOpen call?
        EXECUTE METHOD("quickOpenEventHandler"; $quickOpen)

    End if 
End if 

If (Not($quickOpen))

    // <THE DATABASE EVENT HANDLER CODE>

End if 

Restart the database and hit Option/Control-Space in design mode to display the UI

The QuickOpen dialog box should appear

How to change the main QuickOpen shortcut

When you call the quickOpenInit method, you can pass 1 or 2 additional parameters:

• The first is the modifier (default is Option key bit).
• The second is the character code of the associated key (default is 202 for space).

For example, if you want to install Cmd-% as a shortcut:

EXECUTE METHOD("quickOpenInit"; *; Formula(MODIFIERS); Formula(KEYCODE); Command key bit; Character code("%"))

WARNING: If you install a key combination that gone wrong. You can use the key combination Ctrl + Shift + Backspace (on Windows) or Command + Shift + Control + Backspace (on Macintosh) to kill the Event Manager process.