kate-deft/docs/PLAN.md

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# Plan — kate-custom
## Goal
Build a suite of Kate plugins that make the editor usable without menus, tuned
to one specific operator profile:
- mouse-heavy, with the mouse used at the caret rather than at the menubar
- one-handed keyboard typing
- no complex chords; single modifier at most
- compact keyboard where F-keys/nav clusters sit behind a layer toggle
- long Emacs history and some Sublime Text; `M-x` and type-to-filter palettes
are familiar and welcome
The spine of the suite is a single **action registry** reached through three
interchangeable doors: `M-x` (keyboard), a radial caret menu (mouse), and the
`:` command line (optional). Every feature registers its commands once and
becomes reachable from all three. No action depends on an F-key or a chord.
### Guiding principle: natural actions drive editing
Each door suits a different kind of action, and placing an action in the wrong
door breaks flow:
- **Radial** is for actions that **complete in place** — cut, copy, paste,
comment, case changes, join lines. The gesture starts and ends at the cursor;
attention never leaves the text.
- Actions that **open a panel demanding immediate focus elsewhere** (Find,
Replace, goto) do **not** belong in the radial. Being flung to a panel right
after a cursor gesture is jarring. These belong in the **command palette** or
a **keybind**, where the context switch is expected. The radial keeps a
"Command Palette…" slice as the escape hatch to them.
## Why a custom matcher is the keystone
Kate's built-in command bar cannot be fixed in place:
- `KCommandBar` (KConfigWidgets) exposes only `setActions()`. There is no hook
to replace or configure its matcher.
- `KFuzzyMatcher` (KCoreAddons) is single-needle, strictly in-order
subsequence, and not typo tolerant. KDE's own docs state `"gti"` will not
match `"git"`. No orderless, no company-style completion.
Therefore the palette is replaced, not extended, and the replacement is built on
`FuzzyRanker`, a matcher with:
- **orderless** tokenization (space-separated needles matched in any order)
- **layered scoring**, strongest tier first:
1. exact
2. substring
3. word-boundary initials (`rs` -> **R**ename **S**ymbol)
4. in-order subsequence
5. bounded typo via a single adjacent transposition (`gti` -> `git`;
deliberately narrow to avoid false positives like `ren` -> "Open File")
- **merged highlight ranges** for the UI
- AND semantics across needles, case-folded, shorter-candidate preference
## Milestones
### M1 — FuzzyRanker (keystone) — DONE
- Repo scaffold: top-level CMake (KF6/Qt6/ECM), `src/`, `src/fuzzy/`.
- `src/fuzzy/fuzzyranker.{h,cpp}`: tokenize + layered scoring + ranges.
- `src/fuzzy/test_fuzzyranker.cpp`: QTest suite, 14 cases, all green,
including `gti -> git` and `ren sym -> Rename Symbol`.
### M2 — Palette widget (replaces KCommandBar) — DONE
- `PaletteModel` (`src/palette/palettemodel.{h,cpp}`): `QAbstractListModel`,
re-ranks via `FuzzyRanker` on `setQuery`, exposes id/label/group/score and
highlight ranges per row, frecency bonus. No widget dependency.
- `PaletteWidget` (`src/palette/palettewidget.{h,cpp}`): frameless popup, filter
line + results list, live company-style updates, top hit preselected, custom
delegate bolds matched ranges. Keyboard: Up/Down/PageUp/PageDown, Enter
activates, Esc cancels — cursor stays in the filter line, no chords. Mouse:
click a row to activate. Emits `activatedId(id)` / `cancelled()`.
- `src/palette/test_palettemodel.cpp`: 10 QTest cases, all green (filtering,
orderless, typo, best-first ordering, frecency tie-break, highlight ranges).
### M3 — KTextEditor plugin + M-x + action registry — DONE
- `src/plugin/ollieplugin.{h,cpp}` + `ollieplugin.json`: a loadable
`KTextEditor::Plugin` (`olliepalette.so`) built with `kcoreaddons_add_plugin`.
- `OllieView` (one per MainWindow) registers the **M-x** action, `Alt+X`, a
single modifier with the keys adjacent on a compact layout; `ApplicationShortcut`
context so it is always live.
- On trigger it aggregates every enabled, visible `QAction` from the window's
`guiFactory()->clients()` action collections, keyed by stable `objectName`,
and feeds them to `PaletteWidget`. The action's current shortcut is shown in
the group column. Accepting a row triggers the underlying `QAction`.
- Installs to `kf6/ktexteditor`; metadata verified valid via `KPluginMetaData`.
- Not yet wired: frecency (the model supports a bonus, but the plugin currently
passes 0 for every action — usage tracking is deferred).
- Duplicate handling: actions are deduplicated only by pointer identity (the
exact same action object reachable through several GUI clients is listed
once — functionally lossless). Distinct actions are never dropped. When two
distinct actions would render with the same label, the label is enriched
through a fallback chain until every visible row is unique: component name →
objectName → shortcut → numeric suffix. Each entry also gets a unique id so
activation always triggers the intended action.
### M4 — Radial caret menu (mouse door) — DONE (first increment)
- `src/radial/radialmodel.{h,cpp}`: pure tree + geometry. Multi-level
(branch/leaf) `RadialNode` tree, angle hit-testing (0 = up, clockwise), inner
dead zone, far-flick snaps by angle, descend/ascend navigation. 14 tests.
- `src/radial/radialmenu.{h,cpp}`: frameless translucent `QWidget`; paints the
current ring (wedges, labels, branch ▸, central "back" hub), highlights the
slice under the pointer. Two interaction modes from one widget: a **drag
gesture** (opened with a button held — drag out and release to select; a
release that never left the dead zone switches to click mode and keeps the
menu open) and a **discrete click mode** (click a slice to select, click
outside the ring to cancel). Esc ascends/cancels. Opens centred on the given
point without moving the caret.
- `src/radial/radialconfig.{h,cpp}`: JSON → radial tree parser (+ built-in
default) so multiple radials can be bound to different triggers. 8 tests.
- Wired into the plugin: `OllieView::setupRadials()` registers a key trigger
(default **Alt+R**) and a **mouse-button gesture** (default **right mouse
button**) per configured radial. Because the opening RMB press leaves an
implicit grab on the editor view, the whole gesture (hover + release) is
driven from the plugin's application event filter in global coordinates
(`driveHoverGlobal`/`driveReleaseGlobal`), not from a popup mouse grab — this
fixes stale hover and wrong-slice selection. The press and the following
`ContextMenu` are consumed, so the context menu is suppressed and the caret
does not move. Key-triggered radials pop at the caret
(`View::cursorPositionCoordinates()`) and use the widget's own click handling.
- A slice may reference any Kate action by objectName, resolved via
`findActionByName`; the special `ollie_command_palette` slice opens the palette.
- Honours the agreed model: radials are triggerable by keys (weapon-wheel style)
and by mouse buttons/gestures; the config carries both a key `trigger` and a
mouse `button` per radial.
- Not yet done: free-form stroke gestures (only button-press gesture so far);
user-file config loading (built-in default only); frecency.
### Mouse chording (Acme-style) — DONE (first increment)
- Left+middle chord = **Cut**: with the left button held while selecting
(button 1 anchor), a tap of the middle button (button 2) cuts the current
selection. Driven by the same application event filter — it tracks the left
button held inside the view and, on a middle press while held, triggers
`edit_cut` and consumes the event. Middle-click alone (no left held) still
does the usual primary-selection paste.
- Right-button chords are intentionally **not** ported — the right button is the
radial gesture. (Revisit later.)
- The radial gesture is suppressed while the left button is held, so an RMB tap
mid-selection (or during a left+middle chord) does not pop the radial.
### M5 — Command vocabulary + project model + switchers — NEXT
- `:`-verb pack via `KTextEditor::Command`: `sort`, `align`, `json`, `b64`,
`uuid`, `case`, `pipe <shell>`, etc. These populate M-x and the radial.
- **Project = directory.** "Open folder == open project" (VSCode/Sublime model);
no `.kateproject` ceremony.
- File / symbol switchers scoped to the opened folder (e.g. `git ls-files` / `fd`
for files; LSP or ctags for symbols), all through the M2 palette.
## Build and test
```sh
cmake -B build -S .
cmake --build build
ctest --test-dir build
# or directly:
QT_QPA_PLATFORM=offscreen ./build/bin/test_fuzzyranker
```
## Environment facts (verified)
- Kate 25.12.3, KDE Frameworks 6, Qt 6.10, cmake 4.2.3, g++, extra-cmake-modules.
- KTextEditor + KCoreAddons + KConfigWidgets + KXmlGui + KRunner dev headers present.
- No Python/Pâté binding installed; C++ is the only first-class plugin path.