Hey there, I have a question about how DrRacket handles read-only files. In any other editor I know you can type along in read-only files and if you try to save you are redirected to the "save as" dialog.
If i understood the DrRacket behaviour right it switches to a read-only mode, where you can't change anything in the definitions window, indicated by the small yellow box at the status line. I can't think of any other application(from vi to huge IDEs) that does it this was, which doesn't mean that it's wrong, of course. Sometimes it can be good to break convention, to provide a more consequent user experience. Having said that, i want to tell a problem that someone encountered: He told he wasnt able to write anything to the definitions window when he opened a file from the internet (we are provided with templates for exercies by our university). He also noticed the yellow "read only" but he didn't find a way out of read-only mode. So he copied the content of the file and pasted it to a new racket programm. This works but I think its pretty inconvenient.(I know that the "right" way would have been to "save as") Another point is that it's inconsistent, as you can type in new non saved programms, so you can't say you can only type in writeable documents. And last i think this mode is in your way if you just want to look at a little programm from the web, play a little bit with it, without saving. possible improvements: 1) make the "read only" box klickable so you can get rid of this mode by klicking on it. there could be a small dialog that racket is incapable to write to the file and a button to "save as" could also be shown if the user starts typing in the blocked definitions window. 2) do as all the other editors do, definitions window writeable, save as instead of save. 3) leave it as it is and explain me the advantages ;) I really enjoy playing around with racket and I think it's a great way to explain basic prinziples of programming. I appreciate the great work that has been done by creating it. Greetings Alex PS: is there any way to stop the stepper from continuing to execute the programm while you are looking at steps in the beginning of the programm? I had an infinite loop in one of my programms and while i was trying to figure out why break condition didn't catch the stepper was continuing infinitely slowing my system down to inuseability _________________________________________________ For list-related administrative tasks: http://lists.racket-lang.org/listinfo/users
