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Gestures for better navigation through the code

Shahir Mowlaei 12 years ago • updated 12 years ago • 8
This idea isn’t originally mine but it’s proved to be very useful; I am borrowing (and adjusting) it from another app called Tex Touch which I’m using for compiling LaTeX codes:

- one-finger swipe to the right: moves the cursor one character to the right;
- two-finger swipe to the right: moves the cursor to the beginning of next word;
- three-finger swipe to the right: moves the cursor to the end of next word;

* plus a similar behavior for left swipes correspoding to one character to the left, to the beginning of previous word and to the end of previous word, respectively.

It saves a lot of hassle using the magnifier, I think (in the other app I mentioned, I rarely find myself in need of using the magnifier).
Alexander Blach (Developer) 12 years ago
I once implemented this and tried it out. Unfortunately, it interfered with vertical scrolling (if you disable auto line wrap) and zooming (two- and three-finger swipes were wrongly detected as pinch-to-zoom). So I didn't add this feature to a released version as a consequence.
Alexander Blach (Developer) 12 years ago
Did you try the cursor navigation wheel by the way? 

Also, Textastic 4.0 adds "go to line start" and "go to line end" commands to the tab key (swipe over it in the direction of the bottom left or bottom right corner).
Shahir Mowlaei 12 years ago
The problem with navigation wheel is that it blocks the user’s sight; the ”go to the line start/end” command is very useful on the other hand.

Would it be possible to give users the freedom to choose between {no-auto-line-wrap + zooming} and {navigational convenience}?
Alexander Blach (Developer) 12 years ago
If I find a way to have both I'll add it. It would probably be too technical and confusing to users who do not know the internals if I added it as an option.
Alexander Blach (Developer) 12 years ago
Btw, here is an older thread that discusses nearly the same:
Shahir Mowlaei 12 years ago
I’d appreciate it. As for the complexity issue (for users) you raised, I personally don’t think people who are dealing with sophistications of a language code would have a hard time tailoring that potential option to their needs. But of course, it’s your call :-)
Fexxel 12 years ago
Have you tried the new go to end, go to beginning Keys on the additional keyboard row?
If you hide the files while coding, usually the code isn't that long to be hidden under the navigation wheel.. (landscape?!?)
Personally I'm happy with the way it's right now, but if it's an option to try, I'll try out.
Shahir Mowlaei 12 years ago
Yes, I did; they are very useful. When you are editing in landscpae, the keyboard already takes a lot of space; then if you activate the navigation wheel, it takes about 23 percent of the remaining horizontal space left.

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