Command: macros

[casey-c]

A long term (low-priority) feature would be to enable macros - a sequence of keypresses that can be repeated on a whim whenever desired. So the user can record doing something like RALB; which would add a conditional A → B to the graph. And the user could just repeat that as desired wherever they wanted. For example, they could add it once and record the macro to produce:

┌─────────┐
│   ┌───┐ │
│ A │ B │ │
│   └───┘ │
└─────────┘

and then move the cursor into the inner cut. Then they can press the macro keybind to repeat that operation, putting another RALB; inside the inner cut:

┌─────────────────────┐
│   ┌───────────────┐ │
│   │   ┌─────────┐ │ │
│   │   │   ┌───┐ │ │ │
│ A │ B │ A │ B │ │ │ │
│   │   │   └───┘ │ │ │
│   │   └─────────┘ │ │
│   └───────────────┘ │
└─────────────────────┘

This enables the user to have a long, complicated sequence of keypresses shortened down into a single macro call. If it's not clear, the user doesn't have to retype RALB again to put it the second time. They just hit a key, say the number 1, to rerun the first saved macro.

While kind of a useless example, I'm sure there are some very creative uses of macros out there. And macro support is one of the benefits of the command pattern - since we've already got the command pattern created, we just need to implement a function that starts a macro, adds any new command to a list, and stops / saves the macro on another keypress.

This can be done inside the commandInvoker class rather easily I believe. It's just a matter of taking a day to implement it, finding some good selection of keybinds to work with macros, and making sure things get properly copied. Definitely doable and not too difficult either.