Removing scripts from menu items causes issues with shortcuts

[Mikhail22]

Recently I removed a script from Menu items list (in Plugin configuration GUI, remove button).
Restarted N++, as usual but there is a problem - now in the shortcut mapper the shortcuts
are all out of sync. So the item is removed, but the bindings are not updated properly,
the order of internal IDs is changed but the order of bindings is not correct.

So if I remove the first script from menu item list, all the bindings are shifted.
And this is frustrating - now I need to rebind all shortcuts again.

How to reproduce:

• make some scripts and bind keys.
• remove first script from the menu item list in Configuration GUI
• restart
• check the Shortcut mapper, PS plugin section

I am using PS plugin version 1.0.8

Notepad++ v7.5 (32-bit)
Admin mode : OFF
Local Conf mode : ON
OS : Windows 10 (64-bit)
Plugins : mimeTools.dll NppConverter.dll NppExport.dll PythonScript.dll

PS:
Is there any newer version of the Plugin? I have seen comments here about 1.2 version.
But I don't see any info about newer version and how to install.

[Yaron10]

Is there any newer version of the Plugin? I have seen comments here about 1.2 version.
But I don't see any info about newer version and how to install.

https://github.com/bruderstein/PythonScript/releases

[Mikhail22]

@Yaron10 thanks.
So I have tested version 1.2 with latest N++

Notepad++ v7.5.6 (32-bit)
Build time : Mar 19 2018 - 00:26:59
Admin mode : OFF
Local Conf mode : ON
OS : Windows 10 (64-bit)
Plugins : DSpellCheck.dll mimeTools.dll NppConverter.dll NppExport.dll PythonScript.dll

And I still have the same issue.

Created 2 new scripts, assigned Ctrl+F1 and Ctrl+F4 to them.
Then, after removing first script from menu items list same problem:
the item is gone from shortcut mapper list, but the shortcut is wrong.

Contents of shortcuts.xml has not changed after item removal:

   <PluginCommand moduleName="PythonScript.dll" internalID="7" Ctrl="yes" Alt="no" Shift="no" Key="112" />
   <PluginCommand moduleName="PythonScript.dll" internalID="8" Ctrl="yes" Alt="no" Shift="no" Key="115" />

So the problem that the N++ config is not synced. And I think there is no simple workaround,
I could remove the shortcut from config file manually but it requires to know exact IDs of each script
which is not shown anywhere.

[Yaron10]

@Mikhail22,

You're welcome.

I suppose that @chcg and/or @ClaudiaFrank will look into the issue you've reported.

Confirmed.
The issue here is that the shortcut configuration is handled/stored by npp while the menu is
handled/created by PS.
Unsure how to fix this - ideas are welcome.

[Mikhail22]

@ClaudiaFrank My suggestion is to check whether some other plugins have similar option to register / unregister items in N++ and look how the shortcut mapping behaves. If it is same issue than it should be solved in N++ source code I suppose. Though frankly I've never used any plugins other than PS so can't be very helpful.

[chcg]

I guess typically the other plugins I have seen are not modifying their menu and therefore are not facing such an issue. Maybe it is just a matter of first checking if a shortcut for the menu entry exists and than removing the menu entry. I'm not sure if the plugin itself has access to that information of the shortcut mappings.

Maybe this contains some info on it:

• https://notepad-plus-plus.org/community/topic/12576/list-of-all-assigned-keyboard-shortcuts

Checking how https://github.com/dail8859/LuaScript behaves might give some hint how to handle this issue.

[Mikhail22]

Question: what exactly happens when I press "Remove" button in the configuration GUI?
If the answer is that it does only modify the plugin's own configuration file at runtime
(... \plugins\Config\PythonScriptStartup.cnf)
then I think there is simple solution: just create a standalone tool that manages the items and
assigns the shortcuts, this will save the state in the plugin's config file and save shortcuts to "shortcuts.xml" file directly, just generating corresponding XML block.

I have tried to change PythonScriptStartup.cnf manually to add and remove an item - and it works (though I cant give 100% guarantee about possible side effects).
IMO this is optimal solution (and if other solutions are harder to implement) I am voting for a standalone tool. Anyway those manipulation require restarting N++ so it is even better and more robust.

@Mikhail22
By pressing "Remove" PS removes the menuitem from its internal list only,
by pressing "OK" the current config will be saved aka cnf file will be rewritten and menuitems rebuild.

From my current understanding, this are the following possibilities

1. PS opens the npp dialog to let the user clear the shortcut
2. PS opens the npp dialog and tries to clear the shortcut itself.
3. PS informs by a message that there is a shortcut mapped and it should be cleared by the user
4. PS deletes the entry from the shortcuts.xml itself.

I prefer solution 1, simply because npp is aware that there is something to do.
I, ASSUME, deleting the entry from shortcuts.xml will also work but interacting with
a config file from another entity isn't nice and 100% safe I would say.

@chcg
I guess as LuaScript isn't using menu items as well I haven't found anything useful for PS

[chcg]

Maybe there is a 5. option:

• extend n++ plugin interface to support removal of the shortcut from within a plugin

Would be the best, yes, but from the past experience I guess it takes quite some time before such feature is available.

[Mikhail22]

@ClaudiaFrank I am not sure what options 1, 2, 3 would bring, and what npp dialog you mean?
When I was testing items removal - even if there is no active shortcut for current menu item ,
removing of this item will result in broken mappings for all scripts that were placed after the
current item in the list.
So it is all not so easy. And to use n++ itself to do something like forcing the mapping list rebuild upon
restart - I have no idea how this should go.

As a temporary solution I propose the following: make the PS plugin track the mappings
from the beginning and when item add or removal happens - save them in own config file
in same format as those entries from shortcuts.xml. So this side file should contain always correct
mapping list. Then if an item is removed, and the n++ mappings are broken, at least a user can
manually copy-paste this block from the side file into shortcuts.xml. Yes it still not cool but
much better than what happens now.

[Mikhail22]

@ClaudiaFrank As for Option 4. - I suppose it can work only by closed n++,
since otherwise writing to xml has no effect. Therefore I proposed a standalone tool,
or make the PS config GUI start as a detached process and force closing n++ when the
changes are made.

@Mikhail22 by dialog I mean npps shortcut mapper (run->modify shortcut/delete command)
and shortcuts.xml can be edited during npp runtime as long as there is no action which forces npp
to modify this file.

TO ALL
I did some tests:
Option 1 and 2 cannot completely solve this issue as the old entry keeps staying in shortcuts.xml :-(
So there is a need to remove the shortcut assignment from shortcuts.xml in addition.

Edit: Forget the test - I was ignoring the start index npp reports to PS.

[Yaron10]

Hello Claudia,

3. PS informs by a message that there is a shortcut mapped and it should be cleared by the user

I think this is a perfectly legit solution which many apps would use in similar cases.

Thank you for your work. I appreciate it.