Bookmarks are used to save the current edit location, so you can quickly return to it later. There are two types of bookmarks:
Named Bookmarks - Uses a green flag to mark long-term, meaningful locations in the code, or to quickly set a temporary, named bookmark on the current line.
Pushed Bookmarks - Uses a blue flag to set temporary "breadcrumbs" as you explore the code. Pushed bookmarks are manipulated separately from named bookmarks.
Named bookmarks are great for marking long-term, meaningful locations in your code. For example, if you have a project with a lot of include files, you might want to bookmark the top of the main header file. Or you could bookmark a file with instructional comments about a particular project you're working on.
Note
While the SlickEdit stand-alone editor provides its own Bookmarks view, the bookmark functionality in SlickEdit Core integrates with the Eclipse Bookmarks view.
See the following sections for more information about working with named bookmarks:
There are various ways to use named bookmarks, and the way you set them depends on which way you want to use them:
Give them a specific name - Creating a bookmark and naming it yourself is one of the best ways to mark a location in your code. For example, you could set a bookmark named "main" to save the location of the main function. See Setting a Bookmark With a Specific Name.
Allow automatic naming - This is a quicker way to set named bookmarks. This method could be useful to mark locations that you temporarily need to reference, perhaps only in the current editing session. See Setting a Bookmark With an Automatic Name.
Use a key binding shortcut for the name - The quickest way to set and navigate named bookmarks is to name according to a specific key binding. This method lets you create a bookmark with one key binding, and navigate back to the bookmark with a similar key binding. See Setting a Bookmark With a Key Binding.
After setting a named bookmark, a green bitmap is displayed in the left margin of the editor window, indicating the location of the bookmark. Use the Show set bookmarks option to enable or disable the display of the indicator (Window → SlickEdit Preferences → Editing → Bookmarks).
There are several different ways to set a bookmark on the current line and give it a name:
From the main menu, click Search → Set Bookmark. The Eclipse Add Bookmark dialog is opened. Type the name of the bookmark in the text box, then click OK.
On the SlickEdit® Core command line, use the set_bookmark or sb command. The sb command is a shortcut for set_bookmark, so you can use whichever you prefer. If you use the command without arguments, the Eclipse Add Bookmark dialog is displayed. Or, you can append sb or set_bookmark with any character or text string, and a bookmark will be instantly set using that value for the name. This works best in conjuction with the goto_bookmark (or gb) command, because you can use sb 1 on the command line to create an instant bookmark named "1", and then navigate back to that bookmark at any time by using gb 1. See Navigating Named Bookmarks for more information.
Most of the methods described in the section for Setting a Bookmark With a Specific Name display a dialog that prompts for the name of the new bookmark. In each case, SlickEdit® Core prepopulates the name field with an automatic name that you can use if you don't want to specify your own name.
The automatic name will be in one of two formats: SymbolName:LineNumber, or FileName:LineNumber. The symbol name is used if the bookmark is inside of a symbol. The file name is used if there is no symbol on the line or if the file does not support Context Tagging®.
While you can use the methods described in Setting a Bookmark With a Specific Name, the quickest method of setting a named bookmark with an automatic name is to use the Toggle Bookmark feature, which instantly sets an automatically named bookmark and lets you toggle it on and off. To use this feature, from the main menu, click Search → Toggle Bookmark, press Ctrl+Shift+J, or use the toggle_bookmark command.
You can set a bookmark that takes its name from the key used to set it. There are two commands that can be used: alt_bookmark, for setting a bookmark, and alt_gtbookmark, for navigating to the bookmark.The purpose of these commands is so that you can bind them to keys, providing a way for you to have one type of keyboard shortcut for setting the bookmarks, naming them in the process, and another for navigating to the bookmarks.
These commands can be bound to any of the following keys/ranges:
Ctrl+[ 0-9 ], Ctrl+[A-Z], Ctrl+[F1-F12]
Alt+[ 0-9 ], Alt+[A-Z], Alt+[F1-F12]
Ctrl+Alt [ 0-9 ], Ctrl+Alt[A-Z], Ctrl+Alt[F1-F12]
Shift+[ F1-F12 ]
For example, you could bind alt_bookmark to Ctrl+[0-9] and alt_gtbookmark to Alt+[0-9], for a more efficient means of setting bookmarks named "0" through "9", and navigating back to them. See Working with Key Binding Ranges for more information.
Note
Different emulations have different default assignments for alt_bookmark and alt_gtbookmark. Use the menu item Help → Where Is Command to see what keys are set up by default in your emulation. See Using the Command Line to View Key Binding Associations for more information.
To jump to and navigate between your named bookmarks, use one of the following methods:
From the main menu, click Search → Previous Bookmark or Search → Next Bookmark(or use the prev_bookmark and next_bookmark commands, respectively). The order of navigation matches the order in which the bookmarks were created.
Use the Go to Bookmark feature: From the main menu, click Search → Go to Bookmark, or, use the goto_bookmark command or the gb command. The gb command is a shortcut for goto_bookmark, so you can use whichever command you prefer.
Tip
When you use the Go to Bookmark dialog to jump to a named bookmark, SlickEdit® Core pushes a bookmark in the process. To get back to where you were, press Ctrl+Comma. See Pushing and Popping Bookmarks.
You can also append goto_bookmark or gb with the name of the bookmark to go directly to that bookmark's location in the code. This works best in conjuction with the set_bookmark (or sb) command. For example, you can set a bookmark named "1" by using sb 1 on the SlickEdit Core command line, then use gb 1 to navigate back to that location. Command Line Completion is supported to assist you with typing the name of the bookmark. See also Setting a Bookmark With a Specific Name.
To remove a named bookmark, use one of the following methods:
Using the Eclipse Bookmarks view, select the bookmark to delete and press the Delete key.
When the cursor is on the bookmark line, use the Toggle Bookmark feature to toggle that bookmark off (in effect, deleting it): From the main menu, click Search → Toggle Bookmark, or, press Ctrl+Shift+J or use the toggle_bookmark command. Use the feature again to toggle the bookmark back on.
On the SlickEdit® Core command line, use the delete_bookmark command with the name of the bookmark to delete. For example, if the bookmark to delete is named "1", type delete_bookmark 1 on the command line. Command Line Completion is supported to assist you with typing the name of the bookmark.
On the Eclipse Bookmarks view , select the bookmark to remove and click Delete.
To remove all named bookmarks at once:
Using the Eclipse Bookmarks view, select all bookmarks and press the Delete key.
On the SlickEdit® Core command line, use the clear_bookmarks command.
Pushed bookmarks are used to set temporary "breadcrumbs" as you move throughout your code. For example, you may have multiple spots in your code that you want to examine. You can push a bookmark (drop a breadcrumb) at each location, one right after the other. When you're done examining the code and pushing bookmarks, you can backtrack to where you first started by popping the bookmarks (picking up the breadcrumbs).
Pushed bookmarks are stored on the bookmark stack, which is simply an internal list of pushed bookmarks. When you push a bookmark, the current line is placed on top of the bookmark stack. Popping a bookmark removes the top bookmark from the stack, and navigates the cursor to the location of the previous bookmark.
Pushed bookmarks are deleted when you close SlickEdit® Core.
See the following sections for more information:
To push a bookmark for the current line, placing it on top of the bookmark stack, use one of the following methods:
From the main menu, click Search → Push Bookmark (or use the push_bookmark command).
Use the Go to Definition or Go to Reference feature: Press Ctrl+Dot (bound to the push_tag command) to move the cursor from a symbol to its definition, or Ctrl+/ (bound to the push_ref command) to navigate from a symbol to its reference, pushing a bookmark in the process. See Symbol Navigation for more information.
To pop a bookmark, from the main menu, click Search → Pop Bookmark, press Ctrl+Comma, or use the pop_bookmark command. The top bookmark on the stack is removed and the cursor jumps to the location of the previous bookmark.
To pop all pushed bookmarks at once, use the pop_all_bookmarks command.
Tip
When you use the Go to Bookmark dialog to jump to a named bookmark (see Navigating Named Bookmarks), SlickEdit Core pushes a bookmark in the process. This way you can quickly go back to your previous location.
In most use cases, you will never need to see pushed bookmark locations or a list of pushed bookmarks, because they are intended to act as temporary "breadcrumbs" as you explore your way through code.
However, there are two ways to see visual representations of pushed bookmarks:
Enable the visual indicator - SlickEdit® Core can display a blue bitmap in the left margin of editor windows at the location of each pushed bookmark. To enable display of the indicator, set the Show pushed bookmarks option to True (Window → SlickEdit Preferences → Editing → Bookmarks).
Use the Bookmark Stack dialog - SlickEdit Core provides a Bookmark Stack dialog that shows a list of all pushed bookmarks that are currently set. To display it, from the main menu, click Search → Bookmark Stack, or use the bookmark_stack command. The Bookmark Stack dialog can also be used to navigate between and delete pushed bookmarks. See Bookmark Stack Dialog for more information.
There are several options for pushed bookmarks:
When using Symbol Navigation (Go to Definition or Go to Reference), if SlickEdit® Core opens a file that was not previously open and you navigate away from it, SlickEdit Core prompts to close the visited, unmodified file. To remove the prompt and specify the default action, set the option Automatically close visited files (Window → SlickEdit Preferences → Editing → Bookmarks). See Automatically Closing Visited Files for more information.
To delete pushed bookmarks automatically when a file is closed, set the Close deletes pushed bookmarks option to True (Window → SlickEdit Preferences → Editing → Bookmarks). SlickEdit Core automatically deletes pushed bookmarks when the editor is closed.
SlickEdit Core can automatically push a bookmark whenever you jump to the top or bottom of the buffer (Ctrl+Home/Ctrl+End, or top_of_buffer/bottom_of_buffer commands, respectively). This is convenient, for example, in C++: if you jump to the top of the buffer to add a #include statement, a bookmark is pushed, so you can use Ctrl+Comma (pop_bookmark command) to get back to your previous position. To enable this behavior, set the Top/bottom buffer pushes bookmark option to True (Window → SlickEdit Preferences → Editing → Bookmarks). Note that this option corresponds to the def_top_bottom_push_bookmark configuration variable.