text editor with visual history heatmap

Question

This is more of a wish, but does anyone know of a text editor / editor plugin that visually shows you where you've been editing last?

The problem I'm trying to solve is when coding in large projects, I need to add/subtract/modify related code in many places and get lost as to where I am. I tend to remember what the code looked like, but it's hard to jump back to where I was N edits ago.

The Emacs mark ring is nice within a single file, so I'm looking for something like that except more visual and across an entire project.

Answer 1

You could use Jedit with the plugin "MarkerSets" to mark specific locations in multiple files an then move between them fast using whatever hotkeys you have defined for its functions. I for example use these combinations:

Mark at caret location: Ctrl-p m
Next mark in the actual set: Ctrl-p o
Previous mark in the actual set: Ctrl-p l

You could define "sets" of marks, to group related points. When you create a mark depending on the "active set" a different color is used to represent it. A nice characteristics to not get lost in presence of lots of markers.