inhibiting comment reflow

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Roedy Green - 27 Jul 2005 23:38 GMT

Eclipse comment reformatter is great for free form text, but it screws
up anything that is designed to align in columns. I gave discovered
<pre> </pre> will disable to reflow in Javadoc, but not in // or /*
comments. Has anyone discovered something similar for // or /*?

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Monique Y. Mudama - 28 Jul 2005 01:15 GMT

> Eclipse comment reformatter is great for free form text, but it
> screws up anything that is designed to align in columns. I gave
> discovered
><pre> </pre> will disable to reflow in Javadoc, but not in // or /*
>comments. Has anyone discovered something similar for // or /*?

I didn't realize Eclipse will reformat comments -- have to check that
out.

While googling about that, I came across

http://www.mindview.net/WebLog/log-0047

which says

"Eclipse has a builtin that does pretty well here, but it doesn't do
everything. In particular, and I need to be able to make sure
everything fits within a strict column limitation so I need comment
reformatting.

Jalopy seems to be the front runner, and the latest version even does
comment reformatting. Although it is a commercial product, it is a
very reasonable $40. They have a plugin for Eclipse as well as an Ant
version and a command-line version. "

I was thinking $40 sounded awfully steep for just comment formatting,
but it turns out Jalopy is a general source formatter.

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monique

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Roedy Green - 28 Jul 2005 06:23 GMT

>I didn't realize Eclipse will reformat comments -- have to check that
>out.

there are a number of options in how it handles comments, once you
turn reflow on, which is great for cleaning up mess with no effort,
you have to watch for it reflowing things that are carefully laid out.

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Monique Y. Mudama - 28 Jul 2005 16:50 GMT

>>I didn't realize Eclipse will reformat comments -- have to check
>>that out.
[quoted text clipped - 3 lines]
> you have to watch for it reflowing things that are carefully laid
> out.

Er, I keep poking around in my preferences and searching through help
and google with no luck ... how do I turn reflow on? I rarely do the
kind of comment formatting you describe, so I'm not too worried about
that. I'm using Eclipse 3.0.2.

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monique

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http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html

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Roedy Green - 28 Jul 2005 21:59 GMT

>Er, I keep poking around in my preferences and searching through help
>and google with no luck ... how do I turn reflow on? I rarely do the
>kind of comment formatting you describe, so I'm not too worried about
>that. I'm using Eclipse 3.0.2.

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Roedy Green - 28 Jul 2005 22:04 GMT

>You have to be part rabbit to find your way around modern gui apps.

I have a conjecture that some people organize their memories by place.
They have no trouble at all remembering where in a menu structure
something is. These folk are right at home in the deeply nested menus
of the modern browser or IDE.

Other people remember by association. They associate words, sounds,
images with things. They would prefer to find them by giving these
associations. (These folk love google and use it even to find frequent
URLS) They also tend to prefer the Unix commandline interface where
everything is immediately accessible just by remembering its name.

I wonder how much longer till someone invents a UI that customizes
itself to the user's style.

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Monique Y. Mudama - 28 Jul 2005 23:00 GMT

>>Er, I keep poking around in my preferences and searching through
>>help and google with no luck ... how do I turn reflow on? I rarely
[quoted text clipped - 7 lines]
>
> You have to be part rabbit to find your way around modern gui apps.

The funny part is that I actually *did* manage to find that! What I
didn't find is anything about making comments rewrap themselves for
you when you change the contents.

Maybe I should upgrade ...

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monique

Ask smart questions, get good answers:
http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html

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Roedy Green - 29 Jul 2005 04:35 GMT

>The funny part is that I actually *did* manage to find that! What I
>didn't find is anything about making comments rewrap themselves for
>you when you change the contents.

There are 10 parameters to tweak on that page. As I recall it was
"enable comment formatting" that did it. That brings in all kinds of
goodies I would not want to give up.

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- - 28 Jul 2005 01:29 GMT

> Eclipse comment reformatter is great for free form text, but it screws
> up anything that is designed to align in columns. I gave discovered
> <pre> </pre> will disable to reflow in Javadoc, but not in // or /*
> comments. Has anyone discovered something similar for // or /*?

Use <code> </code> (case sensitive).

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Andrew Thompson - 28 Jul 2005 01:43 GMT

What does JavaDoc do with /* and // lines?

I thought 'nothing'.

>> Has anyone discovered something similar for // or /*?

For JavaDoc[1] or Eclipse[2]?

[1] Which I don't see as relevant, because it ignores such tags.
[2] ..guess what my motivation to fix that will be?

> Use <code> </code> (case sensitive).

<code> is an in-line (rather than block level) element that
should not affect line reflow. Further, HTML elements are not
case sensitive in any UA worth it's salt - not even JEditorPane!

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Andrew Thompson
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Roedy Green - 28 Jul 2005 06:25 GMT

>>> Eclipse comment reformatter is great for free form text, but it screws
>>> up anything that is designed to align in columns. I gave discovered
[quoted text clipped - 4 lines]
>
>I thought 'nothing'.

what I meant is inside JavaDoc /** ..*/ style comments in Eclipse. I
am not talking about the doclet processor.

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Tim Tyler - 28 Jul 2005 13:10 GMT

- <nobody@hoem.com> wrote or quoted:

> > Eclipse comment reformatter is great for free form text, but it screws
> > up anything that is designed to align in columns. I gave discovered
> > <pre> </pre> will disable to reflow in Javadoc, but not in // or /*
> > comments. Has anyone discovered something similar for // or /*?
>
> Use <code> </code> (case sensitive).

IMO, this is not effective.

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inhibiting comment reflow

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