OK I went to their tracker. Which jogs my memory even further on why I gave up on it and am unmotivated to open issues in this case.
Here is a similar but not exactly the same issue: Tool to Comentent lines fail and can be more elegant · Issue #3554 · geany/geany. I suspect my issue is probably related to theirs. The developer response is:
Since nobody has asked for this formatting before (@osergioabreu you did search for existing open or closed issues before you raised this didn’t you? 😁) users either don’t care because they only use it to temporarily comment out code and will remove it quickly, or they like it like that.
So if “somebody” made a pull request which made the formatting an option it likely would be accepted so both tastes are accommodated.
Or it was put in a plugin (if it isn’t in one already?)
If my request is unique they are not interested because if it was important someone would already have posed it. If it isn’t unique than it would be a duplicate anyway. Unlike my problem, this issue #3554 is a real bug. The feature simply fails to work even on its own logic because it produces comments in such a way that the application itself does not recognize as comments. So impossible to later uncomment!
They are basically open to PRs rather than suggestions. It isn’t just this particular case; it is the project as a a whole. It is a tool with a primary user base of developers so it is expected that many users will have the ability to do this. So-called “do-ocracy” I’ve heard described elsewhere. Which, fair enough, it is a FLOSS project and they have no responsibility to cater to me. I always am grateful for FLOSS developers and respect the right to runt heir project as they see fit. However I have no capacity to make a PR.
Like me this dev wonders if it is a plugin. Also like me doesn’t have a way of finding out because the plugins are poorly described.
Obviously we do not know each other but I will say that I have opened lots of issues like this in the past and will do so in the future. I don’t need a push to do it. That said, I appreciate the encouragement because for a long time I would never open issues and lots of people feel intimidated to do so. As I got more into FLOSS I came to understand that there is a sort of responsibility from users to give useful and constructive feedback to developers. And I have been blown away at how receptive developers are to my feedback, especially knowing that 90% of them are doing it on their own time. It really changes the way I look at commercial software when I have to use it at work. :) Where the relationship is transactional between my employer and the developers, rather than reciprocal between myself and the developers. My expectations are now so high based on FLOSS that commercial software seems so deficient. All that to say I understand what you are getting at.
However I have also learned to evaluate the project prior to engaging with it to determine if my contribution would be welcome. When I am not the target user of the project, I find I am often wasting everyone’s time. The target user of this project is programmers.
So in this case a forum post is more appropriate because the odds of a solution from the devs are like 1%. Maybe I will make an issue next time I’m logged in to github idk.
A forum is a good place to learn from other users about undocumented features, or maybe there is a plugin someone knows about. That would actually be helpful.