Dired $ and Speedbar (WAS) Re: Speedbar and XML

[Galen Boyer]

On 30 Oct 2002, eludlam@mathworks.com wrote:
>>>> Galen Boyer <galenboyer@hotpop.com> seems to think that:
>>Has there been any integration of speedbar and XML?
>>
>>If looked around on google and sourceforge and it looks like I can use
>>some form of the XSLT-process integration.
>>
>>I've been using XAE which enables PSGML for editing.  Its very nice in
>>that it parses the DTD and then gives one context sensitive drop-downs
>>for insertion of appropriate tags, along with all the PSGML
>>functionality.  The one thing I can't seem to find is and easy way to
>>"browse" the code.  Speedbar would be perfect.
> 
> Speedbar can be extended to display just about anything.  It is just a
> matter of someone who knows the internal structures of the xml parsing
> code hacking something together to display the data structures.
> 
> I can lend a hand to someone trying to figure out the speedbar api.

Hi Eric,

I'm quite fond of the M-$ and $ functionality in dired.  Would it make
sense to allow for the same keystrokes within speedbar?  I can make it
happen with set-key ..., but I was wondering if the keystrokes were
similar enough that the modes should consider behaving the same.  (I'd
also ask the same question of the Gnus topic mode) I'm thinking of at
least three different ways for toggle the expandion and collapsing when
the of non-textual modes:

  1) Gnus -- [space] on a topic mode.
  2) Dired -- [M-$] as well as [$]
  3) Speedbar -- [+ -]

There are also inconsistencies.  Dired seems the most flexible.  It
allows for the expansion and collapsing of either the whole buffer, or
the particular hierarchy node point is on.  Gnus and Speedbar allow for
expansion of the particular hierarchy node point is on, only, but Gnus
also allows for expansion of the "hidden" entities with C-u space.
Dired-x does this with M-o.  I think speedbar has a variable for setting
this, but no keystroke for toggling?  It seems it would make sense that
all expand and collapse functionality used the same keystrokes.  It also
would be nice if they all had analogous functionality, but the latter is
code that would have to be written, while the former seems more of a
philosophical question.

-- 
Galen deForest Boyer
Sweet dreams and flying machines in pieces on the ground.