Typing open bracket should surround the selected text element with brackets

[vogella]

If I select an text element and type an opening bracket, e.g. "(" VScode the selected work is surrounded by brackets, if I do the same in Eclipse the work is deleted.

I think the VScode behavior is much nicer and noticed this difference while testing @mickaelistria LS-JDT integration for Eclipse.

Would be also adjust the behavior in Eclipse? If yes, which editor would be good to implement this? Text editor or generic editor?

[BeckerWdf]

@vogella: Sorry I didn't get it. What is a "text element" and was is the "selected work"?

[vogella]

Type WORD in an editor
Double-click on WORD to select it
Now type "(" -> WORD gets deleted in Eclipse

Do the same in code, the result is: -> (WORD)

[mickaelistria]

Note that since we already have in most editors some strategy to auto-insert a closing brackets, this request is most likely just an extension of the existing strategies to tweak the handling of insertion with a non-empty selection. For the generic editor (and TM4E that already provide all the matching bracket smartness for a given language), it's mostly a matter of updating the org.eclipse.tm4e.languageconfiguration.internal.LanguageConfigurationAutoEditStrategy, for JDT it looks like it's a matter of changing CompilationUnitEditor.verifyKey() to add the overridden content between buffer.append(character) and buffer.append(closingCharacter).

[mickaelistria]

FWIW, this just got implemented in TM4E (so it would serve many editors already, but not default JDT one): eclipse-tm4e/tm4e@501ede8

[vogella]

Awesome, thanks @lathapatil

Also thanks @mickaelistria. I hope at some point the base JDT editor is changed to the generic code editor to benefit from such developments.

[sratz]

The feature is now always active, unless overridden in code.

Shouldn't this feature be made optional using a preference page and/or coupled to the 'Smart Insert Mode'?

[vogella]

Optional features are hard be discover for users. Why do you think it should not be active by default?

[merks]

The way I read it, this is suggesting for a way to control the behavior with no comment about what the default should be...