I'm using UEStudio 10.30.0.1001 and have a small set of source in a new project.

If I press F11 (the "Find Symbol" command), I get an error dialog that says:

CTAG file does not exist, check CTAG Options

But the symbol shows up in the Workspace Manager/Tags tab, and if I double-click on it there, I jump to where I want to go. I want to be able to do this via keystroke as well. So, I poke around and find that in the Project Settings there's an option for "Legacy Ctags Support"; I check it and things seem to work.

This leaves me with some questions:

• Why isn't that support enabled by default - does it cause some other problems?
• Is there some functionality I'm losing that I'll stumble across later?
• I haven't specified a "Ctags File:" location/name in the Project Settings dialog - why should I do (or not do) that?

The help file isn't too helpful with these answers. It basically says what is evident from the dialog - it doesn't explain what the tradeoffs are or why this (essential, in my opinion) functionality of a project isn't turned on by default. And there must be tradeoffs, otherwise the options wouldn't exist, right?

While UltraEdit supports only Ctags as symbol parser, UEStudio has a symbol parser built-in and this parser is used by default. The symbol data files created by the internal symbol parser are stored in %appdata%\IDMComp\UEStudio\cache (a hidden directory). The symbol data files of built-in symbol parser are used for all the IntelliTips / IntelliSense features. Using Ctags instead of built-in parser results in disabling all that features, for example the function tips feature. Therefore Ctags should be used only when built-in parser can't be used or does not make a good job depending on type of files.

The Find Symbol command uses only the Ctags symbol database and you should define in the project settings dialog a project related location for the Ctags tag file if you use it. For built-in parser there is an equivalent for Find Symbol named Find symbol definition in project files. This command is located in the INTELLITIP toolbar. The name of this command in the key mapping configuration dialog is IntelliTipFindSymbolDef if you prefer execution by hotkey or chord instead of clicking on the symbol in the toolbar.

Some configuration settings in branches of Advanced - Configuration - IDE can be used to control the behavior of the built-in symbol parser.

Mofi wrote:While UltraEdit supports only Ctags as symbol parser, UEStudio has a symbol parser built-in and this parser is used by default. The symbol data files created by the internal symbol parser are stored in %appdata%\IDMComp\UEStudio\cache (a hidden directory). The symbol data files of built-in symbol parser are used for all the IntelliTips / IntelliSense features. Using Ctags instead of built-in parser results in disabling all that features, for example the function tips feature. Therefore Ctags should be used only when built-in parser can't be used or does not make a good job depending on type of files.

The Find Symbol command uses only the Ctags symbol database and you should define in the project settings dialog a project related location for the Ctags tag file if you use it.

Thanks for this info.

Mofi wrote:For built-in parser there is an equivalent for Find Symbol named Find symbol definition in project files. This command is located in the INTELLITIP toolbar. The name of this command in the key mapping configuration dialog is IntelliTipFindSymbolDef if you prefer execution by hotkey or chord instead of clicking on the symbol in the toolbar.

This is what I want - the ability to map this to my preferred key to jump to a definition.

Is it just me, or are these kinds of details on CTAGs and the internal parser in UEStudio too lightly documented? Or am I just not hitting the right spots in the docs?