[regex-coach] Re: Your Regular Expressions software

[Edi Weitz]

Hi!

On Mon, 27 Dec 2004 00:40:54 -0500, "Jeff ADA" <jeff12 at fastpitchcentral.com> wrote:

> I just downloaded your "regular expressions" software.  I love the
> concept!  Please notify me after you've made your next major update.

New releases will be announced on the mailing list (see Cc) which
should also be used for bug reports and suggestions.

  <http://weitz.de/regex-coach/#mail>

> 1. I'm using PHP and they have a separate function for multiple
> matches of the same pattern.  Something like that would be useful as
> an option.

Well, you already have multiple matches, kind of - see the scan
buttons, the split pane and the 'g' modifier.

> 2. When multiple matches occur it would be useful to highlight each
> match in a different color.  With one pattern that matches 6 times
> the first five were in yellow and the last one was in orange.  I had
> specified {2,6}.

This is something that others have also suggested and it's likely to
be in one of the next releases.

> 3. The relative sizes of the four text-areas used should be able to
> be dynamically changed by moving their top or bottom lines up or
> down.  For example, I wanted to see multiple lines of the match
> process when I only had a single line of pattern.  And, I didn't
> really need to see the text being matched (2nd area) since that's
> what I was following in the 4th area.

All text panes can be resized:

  <http://weitz.de/regex-coach/#resize>

> This and the next point combined are probably why I wouldn't use
> your wonderful tool every day - and be happy to pay you for it!

I don't think enough people would pay for this application to warrant
investing more time in it.  I had more than 100,000 downloads so far
and seven (7) of those who downloaded made a donation to PayPal.  Go
figure... :)

> 4. There needs to be something other than just a checkbox for
> verbose.  Something like #operations, #characters, #lines or
> something that lets me skip a bunch of checks until I get to the
> point of wanting to see a certain part of the input being matched by
> the pattern.  I had to click more than 400 times and then I
> discovered my pattern was working all along and the input text I
> gave you was not the same input as I was using.

I'll keep that suggestion in mind but the stepper (and the whole
matching process) is a little bit more complicated and doesn't lend
itself very well to simple linear counting like "number of characters"
or such.

Thanks for your feedback.

Happy New Year,
Edi.