CODEWITHSUNDEEP
intellij-idea
devman
devman

Reputation: 701

custom soft wrap in intellij?

it bothers me: why can't i "soft return" in intellij (or any IDE actually)? is there a way i don't know of to "X + return key"?

situation: i want to copy&paste long paragraphs into a translation.json. Afterwards, i want to format them with html tags.

So why can't i have

"translation": {
Hi!/
this is/
the text./
maybe there is a/
LINK too?/
/
Second Paragraph/
/
This is the second paragraph./
}

with /being soft wrap markers

instead of

"translation": {
Hi! this is the text. maybe there is a LINK too? Second Paragraph This is the / 
second paragraph.
}

(it makes inserting the html tags a PITA)

Upvotes: 0

Views: 98

Answers (1)

Javaru
Javaru

Reputation: 31936

why can't i "soft return" in intellij (or any IDE actually)?

Most likely because it is not a highly desired feature. Secondly, from a practical standpoint, the implementation would be cumbersome because most file formats an IDE uses are ultimately plain text. As such the file does not have a concept of a soft return. For an IDE to support arbitrary soft returns, it would need to maintain a data store containing the metadata of where in each and every file you've ever edited you want soft returns.

Or alternatively, the soft returns would need to be stored in the file. But the only way to do that and not "effect" the actual code in the file is via comments. Such as how an IDE uses comments to suppress warnings, create an arbitrary folded block, or turn off auto formatting. (And of course, with your example, JSON does not have comments, further complicating things.) Using comments for soft returns would, I think, result in a lot of clutter in the file. For example, for HTML, even using a one character comment of a paragraph symbol "¶" results in a lot of clutter:

"translation": {
Hi!<!--¶-->
this is<!--¶-->
the text.<!--¶-->
maybe there is a<!--¶-->
LINK too?<!--¶-->
<!--¶-->
Second Paragraph<!--¶-->
<!--¶-->
This is the second paragraph.<!--¶-->
}

You could always request a new feature to add support for something like this to IDEA, but I'm fairly sure it would unlikely gain any traction (based on 13+ years of IDEA usage and very active community membership).

I agree with @Peter's comment that more detail about the workflow you have might help. Ultimately, the Paste as plain text action he mentions is likely the solution. Or you can turn off reformatting on paste in Settings > Editor > General > Smart Keys > "Reformat on paste". See the following help page for more information: https://www.jetbrains.com/help/idea/2016.2/smart-keys.html

Upvotes: 2

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