[gedit-list] Function List plugin

[Michael Terry <mterry fastmail fm>]

Hello, GEdit developers.

I writing this email to declare my intention to work on a plugin that 
provides a function list (which would let you jump to each function's 
body by clicking on a list of function names for the current open file) 
for at least C, and presumably more languages down the line.

I am also seeking advice.  How would the GEdit developers like this to 
work?  Like the current Tag List plugin that opens a new window and has 
to be explicitly re-opened on gedit startup (seems like a reasonable way 
to do it)?  Or, maybe like UltraEdit does it and open a panel in the 
editor itself and remembers its opened/closed state across gedit 
processes?  In particular, I'm looking for input from a useability/HIG 
perspective.

Also, is there any prior art or other efforts in this direction that I 
should be aware of?  Is there a resource that would do the source code 
processing for me?  Ideally, GtkSourceView could handle some of this 
work -- does it have support for what a function looks like in various 
languages or even for parsing through a file?  I can't find good 
documentation for what gtksourceview provides.

Thanks for your time,
-mt