Please note that all blog posts before 8 April 2007 were automatically imported from LiveJournal. To see the comments and any LiveJournal-specific extras such as polls and user icons, please find the source posting at http://brianenigma.livejournal.com/2005/05/I like working in a place where small electrical fires are not the exception, but the norm.
For the past few years, I have used the Eclipse development environment. It all started with Java, of course, but I have also used it for PHP, C, C++, as well as what I currently do: cross-compiled C++. The big deficiency I have found, and feature I have been wishing for, has been the ability to split windows. For instance, it is really convenient to have two files visible on screen at the same time without having to swap back and forth between the two–for example a header file (with proper inline documentation) and code.
This morning I discovered, quite by accident, that this feature exists and has probably existed for a long time. You can open multiple files, each having a tab. You can drag the tabs around to adjust the order of the files you have open. I found if you drag the tabs up and down, instead of the typical reordering left and right, then they “stick” to the window edges and effectively give you two editors (side-by-side or above-and-below).
I expect that most people (except for maybe Connolly) have no idea what I am talking about with the tabs and split panes. Just remember that small electrical fires are cool. They smell pretty good, too–bringing back memories of electric trains and slot-cars.
