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Other Software => Developer's Corner => Topic started by: Ehtyar on January 30, 2009, 12:33 AM

Title: Cross-platform Coders Editor
Post by: Ehtyar on January 30, 2009, 12:33 AM

Hi all.

Off the bat, I'm not looking for an IDE (for anyone who is I recommend Code::Blocks).

What I'm looking for is a text editor that is friendly to code, you know..syntax hilighting, regex, maybe code folding, scripting (yay perl!), command line piping etc etc. Notepad++ for Windows and Linux if you will (I so don't care about Mac compatibility). ATM it looks like gvim (http://www.vim.org/) is the winner (if anyone mentions emacs, your shoes will spontaneously catch fire), but I wanted to check things out before I commit myself. All suggestions are appreciated guys, and IDE comments are welcome, though that's not what I am after.

Thanks, Ehtyar.

Title: Re: Cross-platform Coders Editor
Post by: Jibz on January 30, 2009, 01:34 AM

*puts fire extinguisher next to chair*

What about emacs?

:onfire:

Title: Re: Cross-platform Coders Editor
Post by: ewemoa on January 30, 2009, 02:02 AM

I tried out gvim for a while and have currently stopped (I did learn quite a bit and have built up a vimrc file, though it was only tested for Windows) -- if you go that route, I'm interested in hearing about your progress.

For the moment I have reverted to ***** (trying to avoid unnecessary combustion), but mostly because the brain I'm currently using happens to already be wired for it -- accident of history you see ;)

I too am quite interested in other alternatives.

Title: Re: Cross-platform Coders Editor
Post by: Ehtyar on January 30, 2009, 03:16 AM

Well....being that both the first and second replies mentioned the unspeakable, I guess i need to open my mind a little more. Perhaps, if I suspend the spontaneous fire-catching, someone would be willing to tell me what specifically they like about Emacs?

Ehtyar.

Title: Re: Cross-platform Coders Editor
Post by: ewemoa on January 30, 2009, 04:57 AM

There's plenty to complain about the unspeakable -- but since you didn't ask for that, how about if I list some of what I find useful?

• dabbrev-expand - I do basically all of my completion with this (whether it's in an ordinary buffer or the minibuffer) - bound to M-/ (Alt-/) by default
• describe-key - find out what command a given key sequence is bound to
• describe-function - find documentation for a function (that is, for something accessible via the editor)
• recentf-* - access to recently opened files
• rect.el - manipulation of rectangular regions (e.g. kill-rectangle, yank-rectangle)
• column-number-mode - displaying current column number
• which-func-mode - displaying a guess as to the current function where the cursor is at
• speedbar - a sort of fake side panel for file, directory, and tag access
• various programming language modes - recently I've been using one of the JavaScript modes and a PHP mode (I've been secretly plotting with mouser to see if the "Ignore Thread" feature for SMF is worth doing)
• occur - showing lines in the current buffer which matched some regular expression
• query-replace* - can probably guess this one, right?
• isearch-* - incremental searching
• imenu - for jumping to specific locations in the buffer (e.g. to particular function definitions)
• find-file-at-point - attempt to open a file, guessing a default from text around where the cursor is
• shell - some kind of access to a command prompt
• goto-line - :)
• kill-line, yank-line - cut and paste line
• split-window-* - horizontal and vertical window splitting
• make-frame-command - creating additional frames (more commonly referred to outside of this editor as windows)
• untabify
• undo
• next-buffer, previous-buffer

A little less specifically:

• narrowing a buffer - temporarily having a buffer seem as if only a portion of it exists
• multi-lingual display and input
• syntax highlighting
• bookmarks
• http://emacswiki.org/ - I think one of the reasons I was willing to consider using this editor again was the birth and development of this site

Since I don't have a problem w/ lispy languages, it's usually not too bad to add functionality I'd like to have if I don't happen to find a way to do it with something someone else has written.

Title: Re: Cross-platform Coders Editor
Post by: housetier on January 30, 2009, 07:44 AM

I recommend gvim (http://www.vim.org/).

And while you are at it: I also recommend vimperator (http://vimperator.org/) for firefox.

Title: Re: Cross-platform Coders Editor
Post by: ewemoa on January 31, 2009, 11:21 PM

May be it's already well-known to folks who've posted in this thread, but perhaps for future reference it's worth bring up the following thread concerning vim usage tips

https://www.donationcoder.com/forum/index.php?topic=6400.0

I found the following particularly useful during my recent vim trial:

http://vim.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page

Title: Re: Cross-platform Coders Editor
Post by: Ehtyar on March 15, 2009, 05:04 AM

Well, it looks like jEdit, of all apps, is winning at the moment, gvim was just too far outside my comfort zone. I probably haven't explored it to it's fullest yet, but it seems like Notepad++ with proper regex and more powerful macros to me. The only thing that bugs me is that you can't select lines of text from the gutter, and from a feature request I read that won't be happening at all due to a conflict it would cause with the way code folding works (ironically I don't use code folding at all, though I probably should). Anyway, I'll keep this thread updated if my path changes.

Ehtyar.

Title: Re: Cross-platform Coders Editor
Post by: Armando on June 29, 2009, 02:03 PM

Hi Ethyar,
Sorry For bringing back this old thread... but... Did you stick to jEdit, finally (seems a bit slower than Notepad++) ? Do you like it ?
I like Notepad++, but I'm having issues with its amputated regex functionality.


(PS : Hello to all. have been seriously busy since last September -- computer science + directing a play... Less busy now.)