Currently when an external tool is run, it's possible to specify "$Prompt$"
anywhere in the program, parameters or working directory string, and IDEA
will first prompt the user for an input value before starting the external
tool. I have a few requests surrounding this.
1. I often have multiple pieces of input I would like to enter at the
prompt to be fed to specific commandline arguments of my external tool. I
would like a way to be able to tell IDEA to prompt the user for multiple
pieces of input, perhaps with an optional description. For this I pose a
small extension of the $Prompt$ macro. Here is an example:
Program: c:\mytools\mytool.exe
Parameters: -server $Prompt[Database Server]$ -database
$Prompt[Database Name]$ -username $Prompt[Username]$
Working Dir: c:\mytools
I would then like IDEA to take this and present me with a simple input
dialog with 3 text labels and 3 text fields before I invoke my external
tool. Currently IDEA won't even deal with multiple $Prompt$ macros within
any one field (Program, Parameters or Working Dir).
2. I would like to see macros available within Run/Debug configurations.
Specifically I would like to be able to use $Prompt$ here as well. For
some motivation as to why I want to use prompts here, consider the
following. You have a testing framework that uses datafiles to specify
which test cases to run, and you are working on a project with over 1000
test cases. Because of this, your tests are logically broken up into
multiple datafiles with about 10-50 tests in each datafile. In order to
easily be able to invoke your test runner on a single (or maybe multiple)
datafile(s), you need to have anywhere from 20-100 Run/Debug
configurations. If you could use $Prompt$ in the Run/Debug configuration,
you could simplify this down to only one configuration.
3. Caching of values in a prompt dialog. If I'm using the same external
tool over and over, it's likely that I'm going to be inputting the same
parameters over and over at the prompt dialog. Because of this, I would
like the values to be cached between prompt dialogs. That way when I am
presented with the prompt dialog the second time, it's already
pre-populated with the values I inputted the first time. If nothing has
changed, I can then just hit enter and move through the prompt dialog
pretty quickly.
Sound reasonable? Any thoughts/ideas/additions from the list?
Brandon Beck
Trilogy - Automotive Integration Consultant
Office: (512) 874-5814
ICQ: 18798156
_______________________________________________
Eap-list mailing list
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.intellij.com/mailman/listinfo/eap-list
