Anjuta2 editor interface limitations

[Biswapesh Chattopadhyay <biswapesh_chatterjee tcscal co in>]

Hi

It seems that Anjuta2 uses a limited interface for the editor
(gdl/idl/editor-buffer.idl). Because of this, things like getting
current word, etc. are extremely inefficient (e.g. in
anjuta2/libanjuta/anjuta-doc.c, to get a word, you get the whole
document through CORBA, get the current position and then get the
current word). Things are going to get worse if we try and port things
like word completion, etc. since every function would mean getting the
whole editor buffer from an external process through socket (or whatever
way CORBA communicates). Add to this things like marshalling /
de-marshalling and things will slow down dreadfully, esp. for people
editing a number of big files.

Another problem: there are no interfaces for telling the editor to do
stuff like show completion lists, calltips, etc. which are pretty basic
requirements for an IDE. Further, from what I got from the code, editor
gutters are implemented seperately from the editor. This, IMO, does not
make sense since editor gutters are an integral part of the editor GUI
(e.g. Scintilla).

So, my question is: are there any plans to extend the editor interface
or to convert the editor part to a glue tool or a simple widget ? I know
people like using multiple editors but IMO the default editor should be
as fast and feature rich as possible since that's what 99% of the people
are going to use (people who already use Emacs/VI can always be given an
interface to call external editors)

IMO, the editor part should be a widget deriving from AnjutaDoc. And
most of the functionality defined in anjuta-doc.c (and more) should be
provided directly by the editor.

Please let me know what you think on this issue.

Thanks and regards,
Biswa.