07.14.06

TextMate Quiz Rules

Posted in TextMate at 7:43 pm by Haris

This entry is to introduce you to, and set the rules for TextMate Quiz, from now on abbreviated as TMQ. So what is TMQ?

TMQ is inspired by the wonderful RubyQuiz. It should soon acquire its own home, but for now it will be hosted right here in this blog. The purpose of TMQ is to have some fun while learning a bit of what TextMate can do. Here are some rules:

1. Quizzes will be given out hopefully biweekly. You will usually have two weeks to work on them.
2. Each person gets to submit only one solution. Solutions should be e-mailed to textmatequiz@gmail.com. The subject line should read: “TextMate Quiz N: Your Name Here”, where N is the number of the quiz, 1, 2 and so on.
3. Your solution should describe each step you had to take, making sure to mention the commands/macros/snippets/menu items both by name and their shortcut. Include the number of characters you had to type for each typing part.
4. Your solution should work on any system containing just TextMate.app, Version 1.5.2 (1161) or better, with the bundles included in it and nothing else.
5. Your solution should be fully within TextMate. You are not allowed to switch to any other application, or implicitly use any other application like Quicksilver or Textpander. You can however call other commands/programs from within TextMate.
6. You are only allowed to use in your commands/snippets command line utilities and scripting languages that come with the standard installation of Mac OS X 10.4.
7. Your analysis should include a count of the number of keystrokes needed to implement your solution. Each built in command/macro/snippet can be used, and it counts as one keystroke, regardless of whether there is a key equivalent associated to it or not. The same goes for any menu item. For any commands/snippets you create, you need to include the number of characters needed to generate the command/snippet at the time you are doing it. This maybe be less than the number of characters in the command/snippet.
8. Any custom command you create/run must be accompanied with comments of what each line does.
9. Any mouse action counts as one keystroke.
10. Make sure to include in your email the overall number of keystrokes necessary.
11. Your goal is to minimize the number of keystrokes necessary.
12. There will be individual honorable mentions based on a number of criteria. In particular, there will be one honorable mention for the best answer from each of the following user levels. Make sure to include in your answer what your level is:
    1. Find Regexp? Never heard of him.
    2. You want me to use a sni-what?
    3. “Filter Through Command…”? Is that like a Brita?
    4. The Bundle Editor? Where is that?
    5. I’ve written my very own commands to take over the world.
    6. This bundle is all mine.
    7. I wrote TextMate.
13. The winner gets they answer published and receives the awe and respect of the entire TextMate community, as well as a free one-year subscription to this wonderful blog.

OK, that’s all the rules I can think of for now. Please use the comments to this post for a discussion of the rules. Another post will follow shortly with the first quiz.

1. First quiz is here.

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