New trick?

Hi

I thought of a simple trick that might be helpful to include in text editors. You might disagree of course, but I'm posting this here as I'm always using win32pad.

The idea is a faster easy simple way to implement plain text links and searches within plain text documents. (This is a different tool to win32pad's 'highlight urls' feature.) This enables instant within-document links from contents lists or keyword lines. One of the nice things about it is that this adds usability to a huge number of existing txt documents, with no need for any edit.

How in-document links work now:

Say there is a contents list in the txt document, and I want to go to one of the sections. At present I need to select the line, alt edit, next, and press return to go to that section.

How it works under the new method:

I go to the (contents etc) line and twin-click (R+L click). I find instantly I'm at the next place in the document that contains the text on that clicked line.

When used from contents lists, it works like html clickable contents lists, making navigation quicker and easier. When used with keywords it can jump to lots of locations around the document, again like html, but implemented with just txt. It is the familiar find next tool, but implemented in a way that makes it easier and more useful.

Twin click is like double click, the clicks need to be within a certain time of each other.

I use .txt files in large numbers, have subject libraries mostly in txt. This could really improve user speed and reduce finger joint wear and tear.

I'm thinking its best to use the whole line of text as the search term, or maybe a truncated but longish text string, as using one word would lead to endless wrong targets.

My programming skills stopped with the BBC B, so I wouldnt know how to implement this, nor whether there are any issues with the twin-click.

regards, Tabby.

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