Region Comments

Syntec

Not sure how useful it would be to others but it would help me <3 the ability to have comments that can collapse code would be super helpful as we don't always have a large code block encapsulated by a collapseable statement.

bgrommes

Syntec Historically, I tend not to use code collapsing features, but if I did, I could see wanting to collapse a lengthy run of code to a comment such that you can get a sense of what the code does without having to scroll around -- even if it's not a discrete code block. For example, showing method setup and cleanup code but not the actual work being done.

The question that occurs to me is whether each editor should remember the (un)collapsed state of each collapsible area of code the same way it now remembers the scroll and cursor positions. I'd say, yes; in fact failing to remember the "state of collapse" probably would break the remembered scroll and cursor positions.

Garry

Thanks for the suggestion. I’ve given this some thought and looked at how it would fit with Objo Studio’s existing code-folding behaviour.

For now, I’m not planning to add arbitrary region comments. Studio already folds actual language structures such as If, For, While, Select Case and Try blocks, and its editor is organised around individual methods and event handlers rather than whole source files. I’m concerned that arbitrary regions could encourage large sections of loosely structured code to be hidden when extracting that work into a well-named method would usually make the code clearer.

However, this discussion did expose a genuine shortcoming in Studio. Although each member already remembered its caret and scroll position, it forgot which blocks were collapsed when you switched to another member.

I’ve fixed that for the next release: https://feedback.objo.dev/bug/1161

Each method and event handler will now remember its own collapsed code-folding regions, independently of every other member. Switching away and returning will therefore restore the folding layout you left behind.

I’m happy to reconsider explicit regions later if compelling cases emerge that aren’t better served by the existing structural folding or by extracting a method.