Author Topic: Atom - A new editor is born (Read 125884 times)

highend01 · « **on:** February 26, 2014, 04:45 PM »

Currently in open beta, you can get an invite by visiting http://atom.io/
and entering your e-mail address.

Atm it's Mac only, Linux & Windows will follow.

It looks quite similar to Sublime Text and has already a large range of supporting plugins.
The core is closed source atm. Although it's not obfuscated

The repository for plugins: https://github.com/atom

Multiple cursors are already supported and an experimental vim plugin is available.

Screenshots are available on the website and most of the plugins in the repository have one / several as well...

Edit
A video that shows some of it's features:

phitsc · « **Reply #1 on:** March 03, 2014, 03:15 AM »

Looks very interesting. Thanks for sharing!

wraith808 · « **Reply #2 on:** March 03, 2014, 07:46 AM »

Thanks for the post! Some items from the FAQ that might be of interest.

How much will Atom cost?

We haven't settled on pricing yet, but you can expect it to be competitively priced compared to similar editors.

Will Atom be open source?

We have not finalized licensing on Atom's core (nucleus?), but we're aiming for a common ground between fully-closed and fully-open. Follow @AtomEditor for additional details as they become available.

All non-core Atom packages provided by GitHub will be under the MIT license.

Why does Atom send usage data to Google Analytics?

In the same way that aggregate usage information is important when developing a web application, we've found that it's just as important for desktop applications, especially during the beta program. By knowing which Atom features are being used the most, and how the editor is performing, we can focus our development efforts in the right place. For details on what data Atom is sending or to learn how to disable metrics gathering, visit https://github.com/atom/metrics.

40hz · « **Reply #3 on:** March 03, 2014, 08:22 AM »

@Wraith- is "moleware" a word?

I think I'll just stick with Sublime.

Especially since I already paid for it.

Funny thing about Atom. From the way the website is talking about it, it almost seems like they're reinventing that other "everything editor" (EMACS) - except this time with a more "modern" interface.

Ath · « **Reply #4 on:** March 03, 2014, 09:31 AM »

And not a word on why they just had to call it 'Atom', like there are not already other useful things called atom

nsfw

Pedantic pr...cks

Jibz · « **Reply #5 on:** March 03, 2014, 01:16 PM »

I haven't tried it, but I could imagine running in a browser might give some performance problems on larger projects. At least it looks like it doesn't handle large files too well yet.

Also, until they fix font-smoothing in Chrome on Windows it will be a pain on the eyes.

superboyac · « **Reply #6 on:** April 17, 2014, 04:20 PM »

@Wraith- is "moleware" a word?

I think I'll just stick with Sublime. Especially since I already paid for it.

Funny thing about Atom. From the way the website is talking about it, it almost seems like they're reinventing that other "everything editor" (EMACS) - except this time with a more "modern" interface.

-40hz (March 03, 2014, 08:22 AM)

Sublime won me over as well. That preview margin is just too cool. I don't know if it is terribly practical for me, but I can't live without it any more!

40hz · « **Reply #7 on:** April 17, 2014, 04:47 PM »

That preview margin is just too cool. I don't know if it is terribly practical for me, but I can't live without it any more!
-superboyac (April 17, 2014, 04:20 PM)

Good point. I don't know how necessary it actually is. But I WANTED it - and it's probably at least half the reason why I ended up buying it.

Not everything I do makes sense. And I'm comfortable with that.

Like that great ad for a certain expensive guitar said: "I'm all about tone, and nothing but tone - but God does that flame maple look gorgeous!"

phitsc · « **Reply #8 on:** April 18, 2014, 01:57 AM »

To b honest, I found the minimap in Sublime not very useful and have actually disabled it. Visual Studio now has a similar feature in its vertical scrollbar where it also shows where you've actually made modifications which is quite helpful when you're making modifications in multiple parts of a document.

For me, Sublimes two killer features are its excellent multiple selections feature (which would be absolutely cool to have in VS; there is a plugin but it doesn't quite work so well) and its goto-anything feature (which VS now also kind of has; it's called NavigateTo - Ctrl+,).

Jibz · « **Reply #9 on:** April 18, 2014, 03:17 AM »

For me, Sublimes two killer features are its excellent multiple selections feature (which would be absolutely cool to have in VS; there is a plugin but it doesn't quite work so well) and its goto-anything feature (which VS now also kind of has; it's called NavigateTo - Ctrl+,).
-phitsc (April 18, 2014, 01:57 AM)

I agree, the way multiple cursors and the fuzzy search in panels like goto-anything and command palette work in Sublime Text are very sleek. You can see other editors are copying these features (for instance UltraEdit just got what looks like multiple cursors that work). On the surface Atom looks like it was heavily inspired by ST (even the names for these features are the same, most other editors came up with their own slightly different names).

I am not saying ST was the first to implement these things, but it does them so very well.

Jibz · « **Reply #10 on:** May 06, 2014, 11:17 AM »

https://github.com/b...-source-for-everyone

Ten weeks ago we debuted Atom, the new text editor that's deeply programmable but also easy to use. Starting today, Atom is available for download to everyone–completely free and open source.

... still only for Mac though.

Ath · « **Reply #11 on:** May 06, 2014, 12:24 PM »

... still only for Mac though
-Jibz (May 06, 2014, 11:17 AM)

You can build it for Windows, with the instructions available, but that only confirms the 'hackable' feature, imho

Edvard · « **Reply #12 on:** May 06, 2014, 07:32 PM »

What I want in an editor:
------
Rectangular/column/block edit mode
Bookmark lines with a regex search and manipulate bookmarks (invert, blank lines, etc.)
Perform actions on bookmarked lines (copy, delete, move, etc)
Automatic incremental block fill (select block and fill/insert with 001, 002, 003, etc.)
------
Currently only TextPad 5 and Notepad++ have delivered. Now that I'm full-time Linux, only Geany has come close, but it only has block editing. Scite's block editing is... not. I tried Sublime text and it can do all that and more, but I can name fistfuls of things that 70 bucks is better spent on at this point in my life. If Atom can do what I want, maybe I'll try building it for Linux.

* Edvard downloads

*EDIT*: Wow, lots of NodeJS dependencies... I'm feeling sketchy, but I'll report back...

Edvard · « **Reply #13 on:** May 06, 2014, 08:22 PM »

Failed miserably. Posted a build report on the discussion page, as I have no idea what's going on from the error log.

Edvard · « **Reply #14 on:** May 07, 2014, 07:48 PM »

Lots of discussion going on now, with others getting it to run and yours truly eating dirt.

http://discuss.atom....it-build-report/8791

If anyone here has built it successfully, or would like to try, let's put our heads together and get this done.

phitsc · « **Reply #15 on:** May 08, 2014, 01:26 AM »

I tried building it on Windows without success yet.

AbteriX · « **Reply #16 on:** May 08, 2014, 05:15 AM »

I am waiting for a Win32 release too. Keep me informed please

Edvard · « **Reply #17 on:** May 08, 2014, 06:58 PM »

@phitsc, did you see this?
http://discuss.atom....ssue-on-windows/8812

panzer · « **Reply #18 on:** May 09, 2014, 03:17 AM »

"... After struggling to build Atom on windows, I've finally managed to make a redistributable package for it. Unfortunately there's no official release for Windows yet, so I had to take matters into my own hands ...":
http://blog.someguy1...-builds-for-windows/

40hz · « **Reply #19 on:** May 09, 2014, 10:19 AM »

"... After struggling to build Atom on windows, I've finally managed to make a redistributable package for it. Unfortunately there's no official release for Windows yet, so I had to take matters into my own hands ...":
http://blog.someguy1...-builds-for-windows/
-panzer (May 09, 2014, 03:17 AM)

And for some of the people in the Linux camp, there's an unofficial ppa available for 64-bit only Ubu 12.04/13.10/14.04 and derivative distros (Mint, etc.) now available courtesy of "Andrew" over at Webupd8.org

Info and instructions can be found here.

FWIW, I installed it this way on Mint 16. It loaded-in without any problems, opened up quickly from the menu, and appears to be stable. . I'll have to give it a real tryout this weekend if I get some time.

xtabber · « **Reply #20 on:** May 09, 2014, 01:37 PM »

What I want in an editor:
------
Rectangular/column/block edit mode
Bookmark lines with a regex search and manipulate bookmarks (invert, blank lines, etc.)
Perform actions on bookmarked lines (copy, delete, move, etc)
Automatic incremental block fill (select block and fill/insert with 001, 002, 003, etc.)
-Edvard (May 06, 2014, 07:32 PM)

Kedit does all that, and then some, which is why I still use it more than any other editor, even though it hasn't been under active development for years. The author has made some changes to keep it working under Win7 and Win8, but in doing so, he unfortunately changed it to use the registry for settings instead of the .ini file previously used. A major mistake, IMHO!

Windows only, but known to run with WINE. Also, expensive. Line oriented, so search targets cannot cross line endings. If you are comfortable with REXX, you can make it do almost anything.

superboyac · « **Reply #21 on:** May 09, 2014, 04:41 PM »

I don't know why, but I really enjoy reading about why people choose the text editors they use.

I think it has partly to do with the fact that it's just a text editor, lol. It's supposed to be this very plain thing, yet there are so many complex options and features, etc. to consider and we get all passionate about them. Same goes for other software, I suppose, but I really have fun with the text editors.

wraith808 · « **Reply #22 on:** May 09, 2014, 05:06 PM »

"... After struggling to build Atom on windows, I've finally managed to make a redistributable package for it. Unfortunately there's no official release for Windows yet, so I had to take matters into my own hands ...":
http://blog.someguy1...-builds-for-windows/
-panzer (May 09, 2014, 03:17 AM)

275MB installed?!? That seems like a lot... but I'm still trying it.

40hz · « **Reply #23 on:** May 09, 2014, 07:11 PM »

"... After struggling to build Atom on windows, I've finally managed to make a redistributable package for it. Unfortunately there's no official release for Windows yet, so I had to take matters into my own hands ...":
http://blog.someguy1...-builds-for-windows/
-panzer (May 09, 2014, 03:17 AM)

275MB installed?!? That seems like a lot... but I'm still trying it.
-wraith808 (May 09, 2014, 05:06 PM)

Lordy! The entire Puppy Linux live distro is only 162MBs in it's latest edition!

Edvard · « **Reply #24 on:** May 09, 2014, 09:00 PM »

What I want in an editor:
------
Rectangular/column/block edit mode
Bookmark lines with a regex search and manipulate bookmarks (invert, blank lines, etc.)
Perform actions on bookmarked lines (copy, delete, move, etc)
Automatic incremental block fill (select block and fill/insert with 001, 002, 003, etc.)
-Edvard (May 06, 2014, 07:32 PM)

Kedit does all that, and then some
...
Windows only, but known to run with WINE.
-xtabber (May 09, 2014, 01:37 PM)

Strike one

Also, expensive.

Strike two

Line oriented, so search targets cannot cross line endings. If you are comfortable with REXX, you can make it do almost anything.

Not quite strike three, but I never got into REXX.

TextPad is only 27 bucks, Notepad++ is free, both do all I want and runs in Wine. Why don't I use those instead? Using Wine to run something as trivial as a text editor (however full-featured) just doesn't justify the overhead, IMO. I've also heard Kate can do all that, but it brings a whole ton of KDE baggage with it, so I can't justify that either. Sorry, I know I'm being picky, but most of us are, to some degree or another.

I don't know why, but I really enjoy reading about why people choose the text editors they use.

I think it has partly to do with the fact that it's just a text editor, lol. It's supposed to be this very plain thing, yet there are so many complex options and features, etc. to consider and we get all passionate about them. Same goes for other software, I suppose, but I really have fun with the text editors.
-superboyac (May 09, 2014, 04:41 PM)

Well... think of anything you can do with text; write a story, code (in all it's myriad formats), populate a database or spreadsheet, take notes, keep lists, edit configuration files, etc. I mean, there is so much to modern computing that plain text is still a vital, integral part of that it's almost impossible to think of something that can't be done better if only one had a more feature-ful text editor. Personally, I need something that will edit config files and help me build playlists with equal aplomb, and if it can help me code efficiently, so much the better (though, IMHO the closer to an IDE any given text editor gets, the less useful as a plain text editor it is).