texstudio.ini the configuration file, about Macros etc

[Lyeebn]

Problems

texstudio.ini (as well as the exported profile *.txsprofile) lost the configuration of Macros since V2.12.16.
The lost Macros was treated as several Macro_x.txsMacro files(json formated) in the folder macro besides texstudio.ini.

This cause some troubles:

• Distribute/synchronization configuration over multiple computers.
  • it is easy to synchronization configuration with a single single .ini/.txsprofile file.
    but since then Macros won't be synchronized in this way.
• Freezing configuration.
  • Generally, TeXstudio save the status at shutdown automatically.
    This can bring in some unexpected change,
    such as disposable/temporary Macros change、workspace location、search history ...
    After a careful configuration, personally, I set the texstudio.ini as readonly to avoid unexpected/temporary change.
    So that, every time it start up in a fixed designed status.
    Now, it's difficult to freeze Macros collection configuration.
• Macros's order are out of control.

For these above, I suggest:

• Macros be stored in texstudio.ini like the version 2.12.10 do.

• How about add a setting option for Freezing configuration to disable changing configuration at shutdown time.

More Suggestion:

• Auto HotKey about Macros.

  • In the early version under 2.12.16, the first ten Macros were given hot key Shift + F1~10 automatically.
    I like this feature, Personally. It was lost long long ago.

• Give texstudio.ini an explicit declaration about encoding in the first line.

  • like the magic comment % !TeX encoding = UTF-8 or # -*- coding: utf-8 -*- in python.
  • My working TeXstudio is 2.12.10, in .ini file, it treats unicode chars as \x..,
    that is not human friendly, especially, to someone who may modify texstudio.ini manually.
    Fortunately, the latest texstudio.ini support unicode.
    Yet I still suggest an explicit declaration about encoding in texstudio.ini.
    that will be more robust.

• About Macros Edit window:

  • When you do a lot of modification, and an accidently Esc key will clear them all, that is depressing.
  • I would like a hot key to run current script Macro (how about Shift + Esc)

• Installation About Language Resource:

  • The size of TeXstudio increased a lot, it's founded that the dictionaries folder takes 321MB while the rest takes 187MB .
    Considering that, a certain people use just one of them. Meaning that most of them are not in use to a certain one, they just occupy the disk.
    It it a good idea to peel these unusual ones, and place them in a CDN Server. Users download the one they needed.

Appendix

%AppData%\Roaming\texstudio\texstudio.ini is the configuragion of TeXstudio,

*.txsprofile/.ini does not hold the appearance/modern setting.
It may fail over different TeXstudio version.

• Macros in old texstudio.ini looks like:
  • Macros\0=StartANewPage, \n\\clearpage, ,
  • how about String in ` delimiter
• Macros in new Macro_x.txsMacro looks like:

  {
      "abbrev": "",
      "description": [
          ""
      ],
      "formatVersion": 1,
      "menu": "",
      "name": "StartANewPage",
      "shortcut": "",
      "tag": [
          "",  // empty line, 'tag' is a list from split of Macro content by \n
          "\\clearpage"
      ],
      "trigger": ""
  }

I have not idea why configurations about Macros were removed from texstudio.ini.
Maybe for folder grouping. Personally, group Macros make little sense to me,
because it cause some extra click operation.

I love TeXstudio very very much, yet my coding ability does not allow me to do some contribution.
I hope I could do this one day,
And I appreciate it if someone consider my suggestion.

[Lyeebn]

As is mentioned above, I modify texstudio.ini manually. For what? For example:

• Custom Encoding option items, on the right of the bottom line.
  • I add a GBK option.
• Search history, Open history.
  • I have some useful regular patterns for search and replace to be kept there, in chief order.
  • Some search/replace history are disposable,
  • Ones open history should not be synchronized with others.

Something are not available with Options/Configurate GUI. We can hack with texstudio.ini