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Nova 9

nova.app

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Re: Nova 9

#61

Post by windpower »

mattlondon wrote: post #48
stmpjmpr wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is exactly backwards, IMO. Command-P is "print" on the Mac, and always has been; Command-O is open. This is the kind of thing that makes non-native apps stand out as poor platform citizens.

It is "p" for pallette IIRC. Same as in Chrome devtools and others. In a development context, I do not want platform-specific quirks. Consistency is really important for me otherwise it is a jarring context switch when e.g. copy-paste changes when moving between OSes (which I do hundreds of time a day - laptop is Mac, developer workstation is in the office and is Linux, so I remote desktop into it for code, but "offi…

You're in the minority, is the thing. Most computer users don't use multiple platforms on a regular basis. That's something that's really only common among some very specific niches, like web developers. Consistency across platforms is a bad thing for most users who want all the software on the one platform they choose use to behave consistently.

I'll also point out that the Mac had the same copy and paste keyboard shortcuts before Windows and Linux existed, so if any platform should be criticized for not matching, it'd be the one(s) that copied the shortcuts but added their own changes.

I don't use a Mac because everything about its UI is exactly the same as Windows and Linux, it's precisely the opposite. I use it because it's different (and IMO, better for me).

(And calling the window controls placement on macOS "wrong" is a bit rich. The platform that basically created the GUI can't be "wrong" about something so subjective as which side of the window those controls belong on.)

Re: Nova 9

#62

Post by gtirloni »

kstrauser wrote: post #3

Nova is absolutely gorgeous. I'm so done with Electron apps, even ones "done well". There's a lot to be said for fast, native apps that look and feel like they belong on the platform you're running them on. That said, Nova's Python support wasn't in the ballpark of VS Code's. But testing it for a while soured me on VS Code, and I ended up switching back to Emacs (which has outstanding Python support via LSP these day…

Does Emacs feel more macOS-y than VS Code?

Re: Nova 9

#63

Post by seumars »

I'm a big fan of Panic but I really hope they tone down the quirkyness of the UI. I don't mind the diagonal dividers, but the icons look like Tide pods of different shapes and colors.

Re: Nova 9

#64

Post by rched »

I think the biggest thing holding Nova back from being a great code editor for most Mac users is their lack of investment in the extension ecosystem. The extension library has no curation which results in outdated, broken, and duplicate extensions. As far as I can tell Nova is maintained by a tiny team and extension bugs or feature requests are slow to be resolved.

It's hard to see many folks switching from VSCode if the extensions they rely on are unreliable in Nova.

Re: Nova 9

#65

Post by kstrauser »

gtirloni wrote: post #62
kstrauser wrote: post #3

Nova is absolutely gorgeous. I'm so done with Electron apps, even ones "done well". There's a lot to be said for fast, native apps that look and feel like they belong on the platform you're running them on. That said, Nova's Python support wasn't in the ballpark of VS Code's. But testing it for a while soured me on VS Code, and I ended up switching back to Emacs (which has outstanding Python support via LSP these day…

Does Emacs feel more macOS-y than VS Code?

In my opinion, yeah. In its minimalism (I've turned off the toolbar and other stuff), it has fewer GUI elements to get "wrong". VSCode has a gazillion widgets, and none of them look like other Mac apps, and is in an uncanny valley of looking like it might be a native app on some system I don't use. Emacs is definitely off on its own direction, but at first glance looks a lot like TextEdit, minus the toolbars. It's just a large text input waiting for me to start typing.

Re: Nova 9

#66

Post by kinghuang »

I use and pay for Nova primarily because it's a fully native app, even though it is lacking features compared to Visual Studio Code. Even on the new MacBook Pro with a M1 Pro, simple things like resizing a VSC window is just so much laggier than Nova. I personally value the native implementation of Nova over the features of VSC.

Re: Nova 9

#67

Post by camgunz »

reaperducer wrote: post #14
lekevicius wrote: post #12

I'm happy to see them try, but rationally, I just don't understand why Panic is even trying. The trade-offs are just too steep. They won't ever have the ecosystem of open-source, Electron-based editors. And whatever you gain from being mac-native is just not enough of a benefit for almost all development.

Not everyone lives on the SV scale-at-all-costs treadmill. Some people are happy building quality tools for a discerning audience. That's pretty much what Panic has been doing for the last 20+ years.

I totally agree. There are multiple definitions of success, and "we became the most popular " is just one. It doesn't say anything less of someone that they don't reach that goal, or don't set it in the first place.

Re: Nova 9

#68

Post by kstrauser »

dljsjr wrote: post #55
kstrauser wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the takeaway is that an new editor has to be a platform, not just an app. Emacs was an OS for running Lisp code from the beginning, and it was trivially easy for end users who weren't Emacs developers to add their own extensions to it. VSCode has a rich enough API that JavaScript devs were able to do the same with it, and while I think Lisp >>> JS, there are a lot more JS devs out there who can add and tweak…

Nova has a JS-based extension API as well.

Right, and I think that's what makes it viable at all. A similarly pretty editor without an API would be a non-starter, at least to me. It's not that hard to make something that can let you edit syntax highlighted text. Well, I couldn't do it, but judging by the number of working text editors on the planet, it seems like there are plenty of people who can. I think the more important part is that other people can make it act like they want it to, and without having to patch the editors internal code themselves.

Re: Nova 9

#69

Post by kstrauser »

SomeCallMeTim wrote: post #59
kstrauser wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the takeaway is that an new editor has to be a platform, not just an app. Emacs was an OS for running Lisp code from the beginning, and it was trivially easy for end users who weren't Emacs developers to add their own extensions to it. VSCode has a rich enough API that JavaScript devs were able to do the same with it, and while I think Lisp >>> JS, there are a lot more JS devs out there who can add and tweak…

Some of us learned Lisp and really hated it too. TypeScript, though? TypeScript I love.

No argument from me. I prefer Lisp, but hey, we all have preferences. What I meant was that regardless of preference, there are a lot more JS users than Lisp users these days, so leveraging that as an extension language makes a lot of sense for new editors (even though it means I'm personally less likely to make an extension for it).

Re: Nova 9

#70

Post by mattl »

nfadili wrote: post #34
egypturnash wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"We don't have built-in diff yet, but it's on our list!" - halfway down the front page of nova.app

Yeah... that was there when they launched it if I recall correctly. Oh well

It launched about a year ago.
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