I'm a firm believer in (the benefits of) spatial memory and find myself handicapped in using the outline navigator (and to a lesser extent, the open file drop-down menu). Most of the time I will have a better idea of where in a file I'm going to find a piece of code I want to jump to than the name of the nearest method declaration. This is especially useful with files containing lots of methods and other listed "landmarks". When it lists items in file-order (= unsorted) one can scroll the outline drop-down to a rough estimate of the position in the file, and only then start reading. This is much faster for me than having to read all listed text to find what I'm looking for, esp. when it is often in a completely different location in the file. Example: class FooPrivate and its method will be listed *after* the corresponding public class Foo while they will probably be coded earlier in the file. Alphanumerical sorting can be useful in unknown code but even then that code is probably ordered the way it is for a reason and in that case the outline should probably preserve this order. The same reasoning applies to the open files drop-down although there I find myself relying on the alphanumerical sorting a bit more often because there tends to be less logic in open tab layout. I think that ideally both drop-downs would have a configurable default order (whatever works best for the user), and a way to open it in the other order on the fly (control-click, alt-click, etc). Or a control like in the Quick Open drop-down that toggles the mode (session duration?).
In 5.2 at least, the Outline view is already switcheable between alphabetical and definition-order. Click the A-Z icon next to the filter entry. No opinion on the files dropdown; I use the Documents toolview instead which essentially works like a tree-style tabbar.
Hmm, I never saw that, and it has an "up triangle" icon over here. It's the widget called "Source Browser Mode", correct? It'd be nice if that button could somehow be integrated into the main widget to save a little space. I'll try to remember using the documents toolview for a while. I know it exists, and being a big fan of keeping my hands on the keyboard it's a bit surprising I don't use it already.
I think there might be too many things in KDevelop with similar names and roles... I'm looking at http://www.flherne.uk/files/outline.png . I guess you're using the related searchbox thing, which I hadn't remembered the existence of. I also can't find a way to sort that one in document-order, which seems broken given the stated purpose of thse tools. (https://phabricator.kde.org/D3673#76450) 'Source Browse Mode' is unrelated; it causes clicking on a use to send KDevelop straight to the corresponding declaration.
Indeed, I'm referring to that other thingy that has "Outline..." as its default text. It sits next to the "Quick Open" widget in the upper toolbar and is very helpful in that it always shows the name of the function you're in (even if you got there during a global search). And indeed, "Source Browse Mode" is absolutely NOT what I want. In fact it's something that sometimes activates itself for me which is extremely annoying and I've only failed to report yet since I have no idea under what circumstances it happens.
I thought you were referring to the open document tabswitcher (Ctrl+Tab) but that one also doesn't reflect the tab order reliably. And as far as the open documents drop-down menu is concerned: sorting that one in tab order would address another thought I've been meaning to raise. It should list the "Overview" document corresponding to the diff on the top in the patchreview toolview. There's really no point in listing that at its alphanumerical position...
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This bug has been in NEEDSINFO status with no change for at least 30 days. The bug is now closed as RESOLVED > WORKSFORME due to lack of needed information. For more information about our bug triaging procedures please read the wiki located here: https://community.kde.org/Guidelines_and_HOWTOs/Bug_triaging Thank you for helping us make KDE software even better for everyone!