[DIRSTUDIO-1156] Text Editor usability improvements

• Type: Improvement
• Status: Closed
• Priority: Minor
• Resolution: Fixed
• Affects Version/s: 2.0.0-M13
• Fix Version/s: 2.0.0-M14
• Component/s: studio-ldapbrowser
• Labels: usability
• Environment: Windows, macOS, Linux
• Assignee: Lothar Haeger
• Reporter: Lothar Haeger
• Created: 10/Oct/17 11:21
• Updated: 18/Apr/20 11:42
• Resolved: 19/Dec/17 08:11

Description

As an IDM developer I work a lot with XML blobs stored in binary attributes. Those values open in Hex Editor initially, which has a "Edit as Text..." button to open the value in a Text Editor if possible (i.e. not containing any non-printable characters). There are a few aspects to improve here, especially when working with long lines of text or overall large texts:

• the Text Editor cannot be maximized on all platforms. SWT.RESIZE is set, but is a lot less convenient to use if you need as much screen area as possible. Possible solution: add SWT.MAX when creating the dialog
• the Text Editor does not support line wrapping. XML or JSON data is often stored without line breaks, which requires cumbersome horizontal scrolling. Possible solution: add a "wrap lines" check box (display only, not adding line breaks to the value text, inactive by default)
• the Text Editor dialog has a relatively small default size, a ~50% wider/higher seems reasonable
• the button to open the Text Editor from Hex Editor is always displayed, even if the binary value is not editable (e.g. contains an image). Only when the button has been pressed a check is performed and an error message shown. It would be more intuitive to hide the button if a binary value cannot be edited as text in the first place.