Some Eclipse Foundation services are deprecated, or will be soon. Please ensure you've read this important communication.
Bug 434940 - [TERMINALS] Cannot open multiple local terminals
Summary: [TERMINALS] Cannot open multiple local terminals
Status: RESOLVED FIXED
Alias: None
Product: TCF
Classification: Tools
Component: Target (show other bugs)
Version: 1.3   Edit
Hardware: All All
: P3 normal (vote)
Target Milestone: 1.2   Edit
Assignee: Project Inbox CLA
QA Contact: Uwe Stieber CLA
URL:
Whiteboard:
Keywords:
Depends on:
Blocks:
 
Reported: 2014-05-15 06:09 EDT by Martin Oberhuber CLA
Modified: 2014-05-27 22:59 EDT (History)
1 user (show)

See Also:

Attachments
Add an attachment (proposed patch, testcase, etc.)

Note You need to log in before you can comment on or make changes to this bug.
Description Martin Oberhuber CLA 2014-05-15 06:09:27 EDT 
Build ID: Nightly master as per 15-May-2014

Press Ctrl+Alt+T to open a local Terminal. 
now try to open a second, additional terminal ... it's impossible.

Design Proposal:
- The global toolbar button should "Open a Terminal" as today, ie re-use
  an existing terminal of the requested type

- The view-local toolbar button in the Terminals view should always open a NEW
  terminal (since in this context, re-using an existing one makes no sense...
  I could do that by clicking on its tab or pressing Ctrl+PgUp/PgDn

- The keybinding for the view-local toolbar button in the Terminals View should
  be such that it doesn't conflict with entering stuff in the terminal, and
  is thus usable even inside the Terminal context. I suggest doing 
  ALT+INSERT (define it as M3+INSERT such that it's Option+INSERT on Mac).
  Alternatively it would also be OK to not bind the view-local button to a key.

- Having two commands identically named is bad. User-visible names should differ
  for different commands. I also suggest removing the postfix "Command" on the 
  command names to make them more compliant with Eclipse.
Comment 1 Martin Oberhuber CLA 2014-05-18 07:25:32 EDT 
Changed bug summary to talk about the problem rather than the solution.

An very nice alternative design could work as follows (seen in Google ELT):

- When opening a local Terminal, find if a selection can evaluate to a folder
- Take the basename of that folder and use it as tab title eg "foo (Local)"
  - When there is an existing tab named "foo (Local)" re-use it
  - When no tab named "foo (Local)" exists yet, open a new local terminal
  - I think this is intuitive behavior, ie keep one terminal per folder

    . Nice-to-have: as an extra plus we could evaluate Terminal's escape
      sequences for "set title" like xterm does it, in order to update Tab
      Title as user changes directory ... but that's for another day

- In addition to that, the "Open Terminal" button inside the Terminal View
  should always force-open a new terminal as suggested above.

- When no selection can be determined, use "Local" as default tab title
  and open the terminal on user's home directory (and *not* the Eclipse 
  install as today). Re-use existing "Local" if it exists since the view's
  button can force a 2nd terminal if desired ("Local 2" in that case).
Comment 2 Martin Oberhuber CLA 2014-05-18 07:28:42 EDT 
I think the must-have criterion here is that the "Open a Terminal" button inside the Terminal must always open a NEW terminal. This is intuitively required --> Marking as defect.

Suggest keybinding Ctrl+Shift+T (M1+M2+T) for "New Terminal" limited to the Terminal Edit Context. Ctrl+Shift cannot be expressed as ANSI sequence so this shortcut can always go to the host.