Author Topic: Atom - A new editor is born (Read 139,427 times)

phitsc · « **Reply #25 on:** May 10, 2014, 06:25 AM »

Quote from: superboyac on May 09, 2014, 09:41 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.

I think it's also due to the fact that editing text is one of a few key activities in many professions (at least of DC people). It's also one where it seems to be very apparent how it could be improved (although the specifics seem to be quite individual).

The one improvement important to me would be efficient navigation and selection within text. Home/End and Ctrl+Left/Right just doesn't cut it. It's also the main reason why I'm experimenting with VIM again.

I've read an interesting rant about text editors in general here and specifically about atom here yesterday, which makes some valid points to think about (it's in German, but I'm sure google translate can handle it). It made me check out the textadept web site which ewemoa had alread posted about but I had forgotten. After what I have read so far about atom I think checking out textadept or lime (a Sublime clone) would currently be a better time investment for me than trying to build atom (which I still haven't succeeded with).

Jibz · « **Reply #26 on:** May 10, 2014, 09:24 AM »

I quite liked the idea of Textadept -- it's a bit like Sublime Text with Lua scripting instead of Python. It lacks the polish though, and on Windows it feels somewhat rough around the edges. Especially the text rendering was horrible (at least with my setup). I asked the author about it, but apparently it was a problem with GTK on Windows.

Quote from: phitsc on May 10, 2014, 06:25 AM

Quote from: superboyac on May 09, 2014, 09:41 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.

I think it's also due to the fact that editing text is one of a few key activities in many professions (at least of DC people). It's also one where it seems to be very apparent how it could be improved (although the specifics seem to be quite individual).

The one improvement important to me would be efficient navigation and selection within text. Home/End and Ctrl+Left/Right just doesn't cut it. It's also the main reason why I'm experimenting with VIM again.

+1 to both of you

wraith808 · « **Reply #27 on:** May 10, 2014, 04:04 PM »

Hmmm... they say the windows version is 32-bit, but it has the 64-bit version of node.exe included, and some other things.

TaoPhoenix · « **Reply #28 on:** May 10, 2014, 06:52 PM »

Quote from: Edvard on May 10, 2014, 02:00 AM

...
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).

I second this one. I'll add that posting notes on boards like this is also text. And text is the middle ground that you can (try to) export into and then import something else. And it's "safe" - sometimes it looks slightly ugly, but it's almost impossible to bury anything really nasty in raw pure text. Whereas we don't go a month before something breaks in Flash, PDF, or Javascript.

Tuxman · « **Reply #29 on:** May 26, 2014, 11:26 PM »

Why not Emacs?

Edvard · « **Reply #30 on:** May 27, 2014, 05:19 AM »

Cause Emacs is a decent OS, but it's editor sucks.

Tuxman · « **Reply #31 on:** May 27, 2014, 08:33 AM »

Atom is a decent browser and still doesn't have a good editor.

Edvard · « **Reply #32 on:** May 28, 2014, 01:59 AM »

Yeah, nothing I did would make it start up with anything resembling snappiness; a trait I somewhat expect in an IDE, but certainly not a text editor.

P.S. I don't feel personally one way or the other about Emacs, it was just a joke I found. Possibly here. I use nano when I'm editing in a terminal.
Deal with it

ander2255 · « **Reply #33 on:** June 01, 2014, 02:46 AM »

Since you're discussing other editors too, I thought I'd post a link to SynWrite's site, as no one had mentioned it. It's free and excellent. Windows only, but I've successfully used it in Linux under WINE (it was better than any Linux editor I could find!).

Tuxman · « **Reply #34 on:** June 01, 2014, 12:12 PM »

What does it do that Emacs doesn't?

(Except that it looks like an IDE which I don't really like.)

Tuxman · « **Reply #35 on:** June 10, 2014, 08:03 PM »

Yay.
https://medium.com/programming-ideas-tutorial-and-experience/433852f4b4d1

tomos · « **Reply #36 on:** June 11, 2014, 12:54 PM »

Quote from: Tuxman on June 10, 2014, 08:03 PM

Yay.
https://medium.com/programming-ideas-tutorial-and-experience/433852f4b4d1

very interesting - the Vim combine-commands approach sounds very powerful yet logical.
Wouldn't mind seeing that approach being incorporated in word processors too.

phitsc · « **Reply #37 on:** July 10, 2014, 06:56 AM »

An official Windows build was just announced

http://blog.atom.io/2014/07/09/hello-windows.html

Tuxman · « **Reply #38 on:** July 10, 2014, 04:58 PM »

Quote from: tomos on June 11, 2014, 12:54 PM

Wouldn't mind seeing that approach being incorporated in word processors too.

http://www.viemu.com/viemu-vi-vim-word-outlook.html

phitsc · « **Reply #39 on:** July 11, 2014, 06:43 AM »

Quote from: phitsc on July 10, 2014, 06:56 AM

An official Windows build was just announced

http://blog.atom.io/2014/07/09/hello-windows.html

It's a 66 MB download

Jibz · « **Reply #40 on:** July 11, 2014, 07:28 AM »

Quote from: phitsc on July 11, 2014, 06:43 AM

Quote from: phitsc on July 10, 2014, 06:56 AM
An official Windows build was just announced

http://blog.atom.io/2014/07/09/hello-windows.html

It's a 66 MB download

Which unpacks to almost 9000 files in 2500 folders

.

Tuxman · « **Reply #41 on:** July 11, 2014, 08:27 AM »

"Nice editor".

Emacs for Windows (the official build) has 47 MB...

Jibz · « **Reply #42 on:** July 11, 2014, 09:18 AM »

To be fair, once you have opened a project folder (which takes a while), it does works reasonably well. The vcs integration is a nice feature.

Unfortunately it does not support bitmap fonts

.

Jibz · « **Reply #43 on:** July 25, 2014, 10:38 AM »

Quote from: Jibz on July 11, 2014, 07:28 AM

Which unpacks to almost 9000 files in 2500 folders .

From release 118 changes:

Quote

The Atom .zip file is now 10% smaller and contains 25% fewer files and folders

Tuxman · « **Reply #44 on:** July 25, 2014, 10:40 AM »

Still larger than Emacs.

Jibz · « **Reply #45 on:** November 06, 2014, 08:00 PM »

Official linux packages,

http://blog.atom.io/2014/11/05/linux-packages.html

ewemoa · « **Reply #46 on:** February 05, 2015, 03:39 AM »

Quote from: wraith808 on March 03, 2014, 01:46 PM

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

Quote

...

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.

The current claim appears to be that among other things a hash of the MAC address of one of the network interfaces is collected:

https://github.com/atom/metrics#user-content-collected-data

It's unclear whether one gets a chance to opt-out of the initial transmission.

Jibz · « **Reply #47 on:** June 25, 2015, 04:40 PM »

Atom 1.0 is out

http://blog.atom.io/2015/06/25/atom-1-0.html

Tuxman · « **Reply #48 on:** June 25, 2015, 04:59 PM »

Hooray.

It's out after it was in.

Jibz · « **Reply #49 on:** April 22, 2016, 04:48 PM »

Some interesting numbers here on editor latency:

https://pavelfatin.com/typing-with-pleasure/