Bug 174912

Description Simon Archer 2007-02-20 22:51:30 EST

This feature request is related to, but quite separate from:
  https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=6583

It would be helpful if the "New File" wizard (opened by File > New > File) could be enhanced to include, under the "Advanced>>" section, a way to specify the line separator for the file.  The available choices should include:

- Default  (the line separator for the platform on which the IDE is running)
- Windows
- Mac 0S 9
- Unix

The default selection should probably match that of the preference under:

  General > Workspace > New text file line delimiter


Adding this feature would allow the user to create a file with a particular line separator directly in the wizard, without having to hunt down the above preference.

Typically people want to create a files with the line separator matching that of the platform on which they are developing, but when you want to use a different line separator you have to:

1.  Edit the workspace preferences to change the line separator to, say, Unix.
2.  Create the file.
3.  Edit the workspace preferences to change the line separator back to default.

From a usability point of view, this is not exactly a high point.

On a related note:
  - Whether the term should be "line delimiter" or "line separator" is open
    to debate, but I prefer "line separator", but that's purely because I'm
    influenced by Java's "line.separator" property.

  - It might be worth adding support for specifying the text file encoding
    in a similar way.