Provide context-aware help, automatic completion and automatic indentation

[stephanemagnenat]

Currently Studio supports some form of context-help, automatic completion and automatic indentation. However, this is done through ad hoc methods where the source code is parsed by Studio (essentially in AeslEditor.h), that is, outside the compiler parser. Moreover, when people drag and drop elements, for instance from the memory area or from the event list, Studio knows the semantics of these elements, which is lost when they are dropped and recovered by ad hoc parsing.

I propose a new paradigm: instead of having the editor holding raw text, it should hold an abstract syntax tree and only display raw text as a matter of convenience. When the text is edited the abstract syntax tree should be updated accordingly. This should allow the editor to provide context-dependant help and completion in a very convenient way. It is of course non-trivial from a user-interface perspective, as the question of what to do when people are deleting some text is very interesting to explore, but such editors could be the missing link between graphic programming and text programming.