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cursor movement breaks re-do!


Joined: 28 Jun 2006
Posts: 92
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Ok, here's one more vote against cursor movement being included in Undo/Redo.
I just CTRL-Z'd my way back to the beginning of time to hunt down a snippet of code that I inadvertently had deleted. Having found it, I hightlighted that segment of code to copy to clipboard, but lo and behold, SHIFT-CTRL-Z (Redo) had nowhere to go now that I moved my cursor!

(so I closed the file, downloaded it to get my latest saved changes, and pasted in the missing snippet)
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Joined: 26 Dec 2006
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That explains it! I've noticed that when I follow a similar pattern, I can't redo, but I couldn't figure out why. Now, I understand. And, I concur!
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Say, what do MS's (and any that apply on Linux) user interface guidelines say about this? Surely they cover such a topic, and going with the guidelines is usually the Right Way.
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This is a deviation from the standard


Joined: 28 Jun 2006
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Bob- Give my earlier post a read.. This is a deviation from the standard (whether it's an improvement or not depends on the end user experience). You can even test this in any text field in a web browser (at least in Windows). CTRL-Z undo's changes, CTRL-Y redo's changes.. Cursor movement is a new thing, first time seen in PHPEd for me..
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It's the first time for me, too, and like you, I'm find that it drives me a bit batty since it goes against decades of experience. However, I'm pretty new to Windows, so I'm not sure what the official standards are (I'm running into all sorts of things that go against decades of experience!). I took your earlier message to be referring to what is common, but that doesn't necessarily mean that it's been written down somewhere by Microsoft as a UI guideline; is that indeed the case?

On the Mac, undoing simple cursor movements would be a big no-no, since undo is explicitly reserved for actions that the user can't easily reverse or that are somehow destructive. Besides cursor movements, other examples of things not usually undoable are adjusting window splits, moving or resizing windows, and changing text selection.
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Joined: 28 Jun 2006
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Mac to Windows? Does that really happen? I'm thinking of going the other way, but, silly as it sounds, I've just really gotten addicted to PHPEd!!!

Whether or not there exists any document of standards is not my area, but if nothing else, it is a usability expectation that has been violated, and everyone noticed. So there may at least be an intrinsic standard.
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Nah, nah, I didn't switch to Windows. I'm just forced to use Windows for my new job - and it's driving me nuts (I have a PowerBook right next to it to handle those web development tasks--usually Unix-related--that Windows simply can't do smoothly). Actually, my top request for PhpED is that it support the Mac. Zend is on the Mac, but not PhpED. This really surprises me, too, since it's available on Linux.
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Joined: 01 Feb 2007
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I'm agree that undo movements - bad thing.
I loose some my code when do some undo, then click mouse anywhere and try to redo. It's not logic.
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It's funny, but just yesterday, I realized that even though I know in the back of my head what's going on, I still get a slight sense of panic each time I delete a chunk of code then try to bring it back with undo, only to not have nothing noticeable happen because the IDE was just undoing a cursor movement. I then consciously remember how the IDE behaves and just pound undo a few more times. So the end result is fine, but it's a bit of a disconcerting journey. It also makes the the undo process unpredictable: I may know that I just made three deletions that I want to undo, but I couldn't tell you what cursor movements I had mixed in there, each one of which adds an undo step. Related, it makes for more mystery than I care for as to what the next undo will do - and that means I need to watch much, much more carefully to ensure that I'm undoing only what I really want to undo.

All-in-all, I'd at least like the option to turn this feature off.
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Ah-ha! Undo in context menu fails..


Joined: 28 Jun 2006
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Here's a definitive scenario that exemplifies why Undo should not "undo" cursor movement:
- perform some edits
- right-click and select "Undo"

Nothing happens! I guess undo is undoing the cursor movement resultant of having right-clicked...
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An alternate method exists, undo shouldn't cursor movement


Joined: 28 Jun 2006
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I just discovered that the bright blue arrows Left and Right (corresponding kb shortcuts ALT-LEFT, ALT-RIGHT), which are browser back and forward buttons in embedded browser mode, also act as excellent code navigation history navigation! Armed with this very logical and useful feature, then, you can safely remove undo's non-standard behavior of "undoing" document navigation/cursor movement without loss of functionality...
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Joined: 28 Nov 2005
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we've to do a petition to ask cursor movement undo Very Happy
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[resolved] should undo show cursor movements?
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