CFEclipse Features: Tag Insight
By Robert Blackburn
In this installment of CFEclipse Features we will take a look at Tag Insight. In the days of CFStudio and Homesite+, Tag Insight was the feature I found most useful, and I still consider it essential in any IDE I use. Tag Insight is when your IDE provides details about the tag or function you are currently typing.
To see how CFEclipse provides this, open a ColdFusion file using CFEclipse. Start typing a CFML tag, such as CFOUTPUT, but only type a few letters (C-F-O-U) and wait a second. A pop-up window should appear listing all the possible tags that begin with the letter you typed. If you wait a second longer another window, with a yellow background, will pop up with a description of the tag that is currently selected in the list. You can click on any of the elements listed to have CFEclipse finish the tag name for you. This works with function names too. Go ahead and click on "CFOUTPUT". But before moving on, hit the space bar (the curser should still be inside the CFOUTPUT tag) and wait another second. You should get a little pop-up window (as shown in Figure 1).
Figure 1
The left side of the display in Figure 1 gives a list of arguments for the current tag. If you wait a second more, you'll see a description of the current argument appear on the right.
If you don't want to wait the half second delay for the insight to show up -- yes, some of us are that impatient -- there are ways to get it to show up right away. You can do this by holding down the CTRL key while hitting the space bar.
Personally, I use the tag insight so much (i.e., I have a very bad memory and need the help) that I have the tag insight come up right away all the time. To configure this click:
Window
> Properties
> CFEclipse
> Editor
There is an Insight Delay
setting, which you can set to anything you like. I set this down to 0
, which means the insight will show up as soon as I begin typing the name of a known tag or function.
Tag insight is a great time saver and a helpful quick reference.
In the next issue of CFEclipse Features we will take a look at the Local History feature, which allows you to review the history of any file.
If you liked this article, you might like the rest of Robert Blackburn's CFEclipse Series:
- CFEclipse CFExplained Part I
- CFEclipse CFExplained Part II
- Introducing: CFEclipse Features
- CFEclipse Features: Task List
- CFEclipse Features: Code Folding
Robert Blackburn is a developer and team leader of the Internet Application Development team at American Power Conversion Corporation (http://www.apcc.com). He has been using ColdFusion since 1999, and has revived and manages the CFUnit open source project (http://cfunit.sourceforge.net). He currently has a blog at http://www.rbdev.net/devblog for his occasional ramblings.