On Wed, Aug 28, 2019 at 2:26 AM Xavier G. Domingo (xgid) < [email protected]> wrote:
Regarding the Leo settings "world": for a Leo newbie like me, settings in > Leo are a complicated issue for sure. So it's something I try to avoid > touching as much as I can... but just because the UX is really poor. Some > of the problems I find: > > 1) It's difficult to know what settings do I have "available" to tweak. > > As an example, I have just opened my myLeoSettings.leo file to take a look > (after more than a year of not doing so) and I've found there a node with > just this: > > > > @bool minibuffer_find_mode = False > > > > But the node body is empty, so I don't know what that setting is about at > all. So I've tried the "obvious" thing (though probably that's not what we > can expect a newbie to do... so I'm probably moving away from the newbie > "hat" here...): I've opened the leoSettings.leo file and did a search for > "minibuffer_find_mode" to see what's this setting all about. Result: I've > found nothing. > > Big sigh. This problem, as you discovered, is the result of a change awhile back, which uses "-" everywhere instead of "_". This was intended to make searches easier! In your case, it had the opposite effect. There is no way to improve Leo's past. You just have to be aware that the preferred names (in leoSettings.leo) use dashes (minus signs) instead of underscore. > 2) It's difficult to know what settings are really "in effect" at any moment. Yes, it's a problem. I think there is a feature that finds settings for you, but I can't find it at present. Maybe it's a plugin. > when using VSCode...I have none of the above problems of settings discoverability and knowing which settings are in effect at any moment...I always know what I'm doing. This is a frequently requested enhancement. I've just reopened #852 <https://github.com/leo-editor/leo-editor/issues/852> for this. The first comment in #852 contains my present thoughts. To summarize... Leo has a huge number settings. The *set of all settings* is dynamic. To show all these settings clearly, they must be shown *in a Leo outline*, organized *both* by *settings source* (the local .leo file, myLeoSettings.leo and leoSettings.leo) and by the given organization of nodes *within* the @settings tree in each settings source. This *active settings outline* will be a real Leo outline, shown, say, in a new tab. This outline must combine both the contents and the organization of the @settings trees of the three settings sources. It's tricky, but possible. Furthermore, we would like to be able to change settings (that is change the original @settings trees) simply by changing nodes in the active settings outline. Alas, the active settings outline can't clone nodes from other outlines. Instead, saving the active settings outline will (somehow!) update all settings sources. I think this project is worth doing, given the problems with the show-settings command. Edward P.S. I do not want to discuss Leo's startup code further. EKR -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "leo-editor" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/leo-editor/CAMF8tS1d%3DpFungVHwsfwdAGhHBJvFT%3Da4sOLeP3yMfJ%3DY0p0%3DA%40mail.gmail.com.
