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Resolving the great undo-redo quandary

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Re: Resolving the great undo-redo quandary

#111

Post by comfypotato »

randlet wrote: post #104
_huayra_ wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well if you want to return to Emacs, I can attest as a former long-time vim user that the emulation layers for vim modes in Emacs are fantastic! They're really the only good part of vim, as the configuration language was always a bit less desirable than elisp, imo.

I've tried in past but always found the vim modes to be a bit lacking. My last attempt was probably 6 or 7 years ago though so maybe worth another shot!

Evil mode is the modern standard I believe. Not a user myself, but I hear good things.

Re: Resolving the great undo-redo quandary

#112

Post by coldacid »

ctrlmeta wrote: post #21

> No, there is no undo "tree", nor any complicated graphical user interface to go with. ... You've got your undos, your redos, and that's it. The underlying data structure is strictly linear, but all edit states are preserved and reachable ... This is exactly how Emacs works! Emacs has worked like this since its beginning in 1980s. It was even documented in the first manual (1981): This might seem to pile one disaste…

I blame CADT.

Re: Resolving the great undo-redo quandary

#113

Post by coldacid »

vitiral wrote: post #30
ctrlmeta wrote: post #21

> No, there is no undo "tree", nor any complicated graphical user interface to go with. ... You've got your undos, your redos, and that's it. The underlying data structure is strictly linear, but all edit states are preserved and reachable ... This is exactly how Emacs works! Emacs has worked like this since its beginning in 1980s. It was even documented in the first manual (1981): This might seem to pile one disaste…

Of course emacs implements it as just a long linked list.

It doesn't need to be anything else.

Re: Resolving the great undo-redo quandary

#114

Post by bitslayer »

spullara wrote: post #16
323 wrote: post #15

Many times I want to undo to a previous state, but then apply again a few of the changes I just reverted, basically cherry-picking from the future (from the redo stack). It would be interesting to be able to see all edits as individual patches/diffs that you can commit/discard individually. Like a mini automatic git inside the editor, automatic in the sense that every "edit" creates a commit, undo/redo move HEAD. Thi…

Use local history in any JetBrains IDE.

I am not a JetBrains user, but it looks like that only applies to saved versions? Undo normally holds every typed change. https://www.jetbrains.com/help/idea/local-history.html#resto...

Re: Resolving the great undo-redo quandary

#115

Post by bigfatfrock »

Izkata wrote: post #102

Vim has this, it's :earlier and :later https://vimtricks.com/p/vimtrick-time-travel-in-vim/ :earlier 3 – Undo the last 3 changes :earlier 5m – Go back to the state of the file 5 minutes ago :later 2 – After undoing something, redo the next 2 changes :later 1h – Travel forward through the change history 1 hour Vim also stores the tree of changes, but it's a pain to access without plugins.

Using strictly vim for years, I'm still mind blown by the sheer amount of "don't knows" within the tool that I miss like this.

Thank you!

Re: Resolving the great undo-redo quandary

#117

Post by pjungwir »

unholiness wrote: post #66

Feels like I'm missing something... If I press ctrl-z ctrl-z, I expect the last 2 things typed to be undone. Based on what he's saying, the first ctrl-z undoes one step, and the second ctrl-z undoes the undo i.e. puts me back where I started, with no way to get back further. Is there a special case for multiple undo's in a row? If so it seems unclear where to draw the line. If not it sounds nonfunctional.

No, Ctrl-Z Ctrl-Z still undoes the last two edits.

Basically Ctrl-Z is now "rewind" and Ctrl-Y is now "fast forward". Instead of a stack you have an append-only list. Even Ctrl-Z appends to the list. (I'm eliding the optimizations he mentions.) So if you Ctrl-Z then edit, you can still get back to the state before your Ctrl-Z.

Re: Resolving the great undo-redo quandary

#120

Post by NelsonMinar »

Lifestreams was based on the same core idea of keeping all past versions of a thing. Only with Lifestreams you keep all past versions of everything. I constantly find myself thinking back on these ideas from the 90s, there's a lot in Eric Freeman and David Gelernter's work that is worth revisiting now that storage is so cheap.
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