Idea Delivered

XPP 9.3 will include this functionality as described at the conclusion of this thread.

Copy x-path from the Status window and/or Show SGML/XML window

It would be a huge time saving option for developers to be able to copy  the Xpath from both the XPP Status window and the XPP Show Sgml/Xml window. Whilst this would not be in the right format all the time for CSS it would still save a lot of typing for long x-paths, in particular when attributes are included in the required item format or CSS selector.

Chris Leggett

  • That sounds like a great compromise Steve - look forward to hearing the results of your investigations.

  • If I understand, you really don't want to add the "focus" problem to the mix.

    I will investigate a place where we can put a readily available button that basically says "copy xpath to clipboard" or possibly a context menu. I think either one will meet the need, yet not change behavior.

  • Because the Status window pops up regardless of the markup/structure you're editing would the ability to copy the XPath information from the XML/SGML Tree View window allow the functionality to be more targeted to ML users?

    Commenting as someone who develops in both XML and Classic modes, losing focus for a feature not used if working in Classic would be annoying. However when working on an XML library, being able to copy from the XML/SGML Tree View window  would be very useful.

    Binding this to a window only used by *ML developers would target the audience that would use the copy/paste functionality.

  • Steve: would it not be possible to simply right-click the status window and, depending on the x/y of the click determine if it was over/near the xpath and display a context-sensitive menu. Having selected 'copy' (for Chris' requirements, maybe other options would be available?), then return focus to the "page"?

  • Thanks for looking at this Steve. So what you are saying is that the Status window is "display only" and if you change that behaviour then the user would have to "click back" to the other window. If you did change that it would be acting like all the other spec files so I don't personnally see any issue as developers are used to that sort of behaviour when moving between the sdedit window(s) and the XPP open division.

    Its fairly normal to grab stuff from the division and move it to the if or xx specs (or vice versa) and the same really goes for the css and xyperl specs although more changes are required in the later case.