Last time we looked at the new code navigator on top of the source code views in PrimalScript 2012. Today we’ll have a look at the other tabs on the new ribbon interface.
There are four additional tabs that are always available:
View
This is the place where you can show or hide all the secondary windows, or things you switched of by accident. Most items are pretty self-explanatory. The Debug console only applies to PowerShell, so don’t expect that to be available when you are debugging VBScript. ‘Call Stack’, ‘Variables’ and ‘Watch’ become visible automatically when you start debugging, but in case you inadvertently close one, here is where you bring it back.
Project
If the name didn’t give it away, this tab is about projects. If you have never used them, you can just forget about this tab. If you use projects to group files together, develop ASP web sites, create C# or VB.NET components etc. you have seen all this. All the project functionality of the previous PrimalScript versions is concentrated in one place.
Tools
The Tools tab is the home of all the things you should need occasionally, but please let us know if we need to transfer any of this to the Home tab. The wizards are pretty much on par with the 2011 versions and the FTP functionality is also identical. We just moved the items from the 2011 file submenu to it’s own group here to make it more discoverable.
The source control group contains all the items from the old Source control toolbar. Last but not least we have the Database group, which sets the current connection for any SQL files you would like to run directly from within PrimalScript.
Help
Product Help links to the help file, the manual and a default keyboard map. Yes, we know it is still the 2011 manual. It is being worked on and I was promised it would go faster than last time.
Check for updates launches the update checker in the designated interval. As opposed to some other products, we don’t continuously run an agent hogging memory and bandwidth. The check is only run as set by you and then terminates. Of course you can always click “Check for updates” to check right now.
Register product: We really encourage you to do that. It will store your license key on our site and associate it with your login. If you ever loose your hard drive and email archive, you can get the license key and the software right on our site. If you don’t register your key we may not be able to help you especially if you or your company purchased it through a third party.
Some links to our site round out this category. Click on them, pretty self-explanatory.
Additionally, there are three context tabs which only show up when you open and activate HTML or XML files. There is a third kind, which will only open up when you connect to an FTP site.
These are called context tabs because they only become visible when the associated document type is open and has the focus. It reduces clutter in the main user interface for those who never use these functions.
HTML
Whenever you set the focus to an HTML page in text or WYSIYG mode you will see the HTML context tab show up. It contains helpful functions and indicators for this particular file type. If you open a browser window within PrimalScript, e.g. from an MSDN search, you will also get this context tab. As soon as you activate a document where this does not apply to it will be hidden again.
XML
XML are very commonly used as configuration files today and you may encounter them more often than before. PrimalScript contains a special XML editor that makes the structure of these files easier to comprehend. If you want to edit them in plain text mode, you can. If you have to deal with these types of files a lot I suggest you also have a look at PrimalXML 2012. This tab and its groups contain command that apply to the structured XML editor in PrimalScript.
FTP
We do not recommend that you edit files directly on an FTP server. It is always much better to sandbox them locally and upload them when you are done editing. We know however that what is consider a “best practice” does not always correlate to reality. So if you go to the Tools tab on the Ribbon bar and open an FTP site you will see this context tab becoming active. For PrimalScript 20xx users this is really just a reincarnation of the FTP toolbar. The functions are pretty straightforward and should pose no problem for users familiar with FTP.
In FTP I tend to upload files to web sites and forums. The FTP tool in PrimalScritp is very useful for this however, it could be much more convenent.
I frequently have a local file that I wan to keep a copy of on an FTP site. It would be convenient to have a ‘put’ that has a predifined ftp site AND it uses a new name.
Example:
I have a file test-something.ps1. I cannot upload a script extension to the ftp site as it is not a supported type. I want my file to have a different name – tes-something.ps1.txt. I would also like to be able to just hit a ‘publish’ button to update the web copy.
Another thing that would be awesome. Have PrimalScript/Sapien tools all publish directly to and browse and download directly from ScriptingAnswers – Script Sharing Forums.