Preface:
Launch is a general purpose plugin for running scripts and other programs on the file owned by the current buffer and viewing the output. This short guide will explain each part of the plugin and its features. To use Launch it must first have been enabled in the Plugin Manager, after enabling it and restarting Editra a Launch window can be opened by going to View=>Shelf=>Launch.
1: Basic Overview
The above screenshot shows the basic layout of the user interface. Here is quick explanation of each component from top to bottom and left to right.
- The small bitmap button of the tools on the far left will open the configuration dialog for the plugin.
- The choice box to the right contains a list of the executable programs alias names that are configured for the filetype in the current buffer. The chosen executable will be run on the file owned by the current buffer when the run button is pressed. If this control is empty or grayed out then either Launch can't handle the current file type or that filetype doesn't have any executable configured for it. In the screenshot the current buffer has a python file in it so this control is displaying the python executable. The configuration dialog can be used to add more or edit what executables are available for each file type. When configuring these options one adds an executables full path and then gives it an alias for display in this control.
- The next item to the right displays the name of the file that Launch is currently working with. This is automatically synchronized with the file in the current buffer.
- The next item to the right is a small text box for entering any arguments you may want to pass to file when running it. For instance if you are working on a python or shell script that have command line arguments they can be specified here.
- The first item on the far right is the Run button. Clicking on this will run the specified executable on the file in the current buffer. While the executable is running the Run button will change to Abort. Clicking the button while it is in the Abort state will force the executable to stop running.
- The final item on the far right is the Clear button. It can be used to clear the text in the output display buffer at anytime.
- The last part of the ui is the display buffer which is the large white area on the bottom. When an executable is running any output that it sends to stdout is redirected to this buffer. Many of the supported filetypes will also do special highlighting of errors in the output. These errors are underlined and colored in red. Clicking on them will cause the editor to open the file with the error to the line/position specified in error message.
2: Configuration
This screenshot shows the dialog that is opened when one clicks on the config button. This dialog is used for setting up the executable programs that Launch can use on the file in the given buffer as well as default settings for each supported filetype. Included below is a quick overview of each part of this dialog and how to use it.
- At the top is a choice control for selecting which filetype's settings you wish to configure
- The next control is a choice control for setting the default executable to use for a given filetype.
- Next is a list for editing the list of available commands for the selected filetype. The left column 'Alias' is the executable commands alias name that will be shown in the choice control of the main display. The right column 'Executable Commands' is the actual command/path to executable that should be run when called upon. If the executable is on your path then just putting its name there should be sufficient.
- The small two buttons on the bottom are for adding (+) and removing (-) commands from the list.
3: Features
Launch currently has support for a fair number of filetypes with more to be added in future releases. The following list is a list of all the currently supported filetypes and their features that are available in v0.6 of Launch.
- Ada
- Bash Shell Scripts (Error highlighting / Navigation)
- Batch Scripts
- Boo
- C-Shell
- Caml
- D
- Ferite
- Haskell
- haXe (Error highlighting / Navigation)
- Html (open file in browser)
- Inno Setup Scripts
- Korn Shell
- LaTeX
- Lua (Error highlighting / Navigation)
- newLisp
- NullSoft Installer Scripts (Error highlighting / Navigation)
- Perl (Error highlighting / Navigation)
- Php (Error highlighting / Navigation)
- Pike
- Postscript
- Python (Error highlighting / Navigation)
- R
- Ruby (Error highlighting / Navigation)
- Stata
- Tcl/Tk (Error highlighting / Navigation)
- VbScript