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Show HN: Haystack – an IDE for exploring and editing code on an infinite canvas

haystackeditor.com

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Re: Show HN: Haystack – an IDE for exploring and editing code on an infinite canvas

#171

Post by akshaysg »

sensanaty wrote: post #158

This is really cool! I like the fact that when you navigate to a method/declaration/whatever, it only contains the relevant snippet, rather than opening a secondary tab with the whole file scrolled to where the definition is. I often end up in a situation where I keep losing track of whatever method I'm reading since I need to compare where a method is called vs its definition, which is frustrating. I like that I can…

Yeah we have some work to do to make it easier to navigate on the keyboard.

For the "parent window" what are you imagining here as your frame of reference? This idea makes sense but I'm wondering if you want to designate a specific window as an anchor vs some heuristic that identifies such an anchor.

Re: Show HN: Haystack – an IDE for exploring and editing code on an infinite canvas

#172

Post by andybak »

akshaysg wrote: post #171
sensanaty wrote: post #158

This is really cool! I like the fact that when you navigate to a method/declaration/whatever, it only contains the relevant snippet, rather than opening a secondary tab with the whole file scrolled to where the definition is. I often end up in a situation where I keep losing track of whatever method I'm reading since I need to compare where a method is called vs its definition, which is frustrating. I like that I can…

Yeah we have some work to do to make it easier to navigate on the keyboard. For the "parent window" what are you imagining here as your frame of reference? This idea makes sense but I'm wondering if you want to designate a specific window as an anchor vs some heuristic that identifies such an anchor.

I viscerally dislike manually arranging windows. Have you investigated auto tiling?

Also how well does this work on smaller screens? My preferred ergonomic posture is slumped on the sofa with a laptop on my belly.

Re: Show HN: Haystack – an IDE for exploring and editing code on an infinite canvas

#173

Post by faustlast »

replete wrote: post #162

Awesome I've wanted this exact kind of thing for many years - a code editor that lets me create funnels of code sections/functions for flow through an app - because you're often working through a particular flow in an application spanning many files. Definitely trying this out

emacs has existed for many decades already.

Re: Show HN: Haystack – an IDE for exploring and editing code on an infinite canvas

#174

Post by akshaysg »

thiht wrote: post #168

That's a very cool concept but I don't understand how to use it. The 4 buttons above a pane (?) have no label or tooltip so I don't know what they do. Even clicking on them nothing happens, so it's not clear what the arrows, or blank paper, or the... thingy, do. The zoom control with the wheel seems wrong too, scrolling up should zoom, not dezoom. I also would like to display a single function in a pane but it doesn'…

We'll add tooltips and better/more explanatory UI soon! We rushed to get this out so there are a few rough edges unfortunately.

We'll fix the Zoom controls and I'll take a look at the problems you're having with Go. Thank you for the feedback!

Re: Show HN: Haystack – an IDE for exploring and editing code on an infinite canvas

#175

Post by akshaysg »

andybak wrote: post #172
akshaysg wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah we have some work to do to make it easier to navigate on the keyboard. For the "parent window" what are you imagining here as your frame of reference? This idea makes sense but I'm wondering if you want to designate a specific window as an anchor vs some heuristic that identifies such an anchor.

I viscerally dislike manually arranging windows. Have you investigated auto tiling? Also how well does this work on smaller screens? My preferred ergonomic posture is slumped on the sofa with a laptop on my belly.

We should be placing the editors in your viewport so that you don't have to do manual arrangement. We try to fit as many editors in your viewport as possible.

I use a 15 inch laptop and it works well there. I do not know how small your screen is, but please let me know if you feel like it's not ergonomic for smaller screens.

Re: Show HN: Haystack – an IDE for exploring and editing code on an infinite canvas

#176

Post by kalaksi »

jacobsimon wrote: post #159
azhenley wrote: post #147

I published a paper comparing navigation time with a canvas-based editor (Code Bubbles) vs. traditional tab-based editor (Eclipe) vs. a carousel-based editor (Patchworks, a tool I designed). We found the canvas provided too much freedom. https://austinhenley.com/pubs/Henley2014CHI_Patchworks.pdf

This is cool - I haven’t really thought much about the spatial organization of my IDE before. Reflecting on it now, I realize I don’t even use the tabs in VS Code anymore because I have way too many files open. I just look at one file at a time, and when I need to switch I use Cmd-P to search or jump between recent files. Works well but requires me to keep the names of files/directories in my head all the time.

I mainly use ctrl-tab to switch between tabs for the same reason. Recently active tabs are first on the list so it's a fast way to switch between recent tabs. For not-recent tabs, I still don't use the tab bar but press ctrl-tab and then select a file using mouse in the ctrl-tab dialog (or just tabbing many times)

Re: Show HN: Haystack – an IDE for exploring and editing code on an infinite canvas

#177

Post by jhbadger »

faustlast wrote: post #173
replete wrote: post #162

Awesome I've wanted this exact kind of thing for many years - a code editor that lets me create funnels of code sections/functions for flow through an app - because you're often working through a particular flow in an application spanning many files. Definitely trying this out

emacs has existed for many decades already.

The whole recent crop of extendable editors (atom, vscode, zed, etc.) seem to have been created by a younger generation that never used emacs (and are perhaps scared of it because they find Lisp weird) and so are reinventing the wheel.

Re: Show HN: Haystack – an IDE for exploring and editing code on an infinite canvas

#178

Post by burningsnow »

faustlast wrote: post #173
replete wrote: post #162

Awesome I've wanted this exact kind of thing for many years - a code editor that lets me create funnels of code sections/functions for flow through an app - because you're often working through a particular flow in an application spanning many files. Definitely trying this out

emacs has existed for many decades already.

just curious, how do you do this in emacs?

I can jump from function to function across files, but it's not showing the whole function chain / path in 1 view

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