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Lite XL: A lightweight text editor written in C and Lua

lite-xl.com

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Re: Lite XL: A lightweight text editor written in C and Lua

#111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're conflating LSP and VSCode. LSP is a completely open spec for things like autocomplete, syntax highlighting, symbol searching and so on. Any editor can use any LSP server and jetbrains is using it for new languages in their editors and fleet VSCode is also completely open source. The only thing not "open" about it is the keys they use to make the final distributable. Even the VSCodium docs say as much. They lit…

On a surface level, this is true. Vast majority of the code that makes VS Code is MIT licensed. But the configuration of what marketplace is used and what extensions have access to the privileged "proposed API" makes huge difference in what Microsoft/GitHub can provide as user experience and what other developers can do. See this great post for detailed explanation how Microsoft created a closed ecosystem around VS C…

I understand the difference in UX but I'm really not concerned with that. The code itself is all open source for the VSCode client and will probably remain that way. Extensions like Pylance are replaceable and the Python extension can already just use Jedi instead. Also I'm sorry but that article is really terrible in terms of both content and layout. In terms of content, its only real argument is the .Net fiasco and some issue with Gitpod that really doesn't matter. In terms of content, the page is utterly unreadable

I'm perfectly aware of what Microsoft could do in some distant future. But as is, for all intents and purposes, VSCode is open source

Re: Lite XL: A lightweight text editor written in C and Lua

#112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Native UIs are becoming an anachronism pretty fast. Free-form web and electron based apps are becoming the norm and it won't be to long before people see native UI apps as some sort of weird throwback. IE. IMO that ship has sailed and using lower level/cross platform graphics stacks make a lot more sense these days.

Fast native running binaries will never be anachronistic

I'm not saying they won't still be around. They will just use lower level graphics libraries and be more free form. The days of the 'native' GUI widgets are over.

Re: Lite XL: A lightweight text editor written in C and Lua

#113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On a surface level, this is true. Vast majority of the code that makes VS Code is MIT licensed. But the configuration of what marketplace is used and what extensions have access to the privileged "proposed API" makes huge difference in what Microsoft/GitHub can provide as user experience and what other developers can do. See this great post for detailed explanation how Microsoft created a closed ecosystem around VS C…

I understand the difference in UX but I'm really not concerned with that. The code itself is all open source for the VSCode client and will probably remain that way. Extensions like Pylance are replaceable and the Python extension can already just use Jedi instead. Also I'm sorry but that article is really terrible in terms of both content and layout. In terms of content, its only real argument is the .Net fiasco and…

> But as is, for all intents and purposes, VSCode is open source

... Except that if you use the source to make your own build, you lose the extension ecosystem that is one of VSC's major selling points. It is at best a worked example of tivoization.

Re: Lite XL: A lightweight text editor written in C and Lua

#115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand the difference in UX but I'm really not concerned with that. The code itself is all open source for the VSCode client and will probably remain that way. Extensions like Pylance are replaceable and the Python extension can already just use Jedi instead. Also I'm sorry but that article is really terrible in terms of both content and layout. In terms of content, its only real argument is the .Net fiasco and…

> But as is, for all intents and purposes, VSCode is open source ... Except that if you use the source to make your own build, you lose the extension ecosystem that is one of VSC's major selling points. It is at best a worked example of tivoization.

The extensions are compatible, aren't they?

    rm -fr ~/.vscode/*
    cp -a ~/.vscode-oss/* ~/.vscode/
    # Run VS Code, download extensions
    cp -a ~/.vscode/* ~/.vscode-oss/
Based on my recollection of migrating to VSCodium, all my extensions continued to work just fine.

I think there's also a hacky way to let VSCodium access the VS Code extension marketplace, but I believe it's an EULA violation.

Re: Lite XL: A lightweight text editor written in C and Lua

#116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand the difference in UX but I'm really not concerned with that. The code itself is all open source for the VSCode client and will probably remain that way. Extensions like Pylance are replaceable and the Python extension can already just use Jedi instead. Also I'm sorry but that article is really terrible in terms of both content and layout. In terms of content, its only real argument is the .Net fiasco and…

> But as is, for all intents and purposes, VSCode is open source ... Except that if you use the source to make your own build, you lose the extension ecosystem that is one of VSC's major selling points. It is at best a worked example of tivoization.

You can easily just download the extension dist files and dump it in the extensions folder. Most extensions are open source too and VScode is not doing anything special with the extension files. They're mostly just JS. You lose out on the convenience of the marketplace but the open source version exists. If a maintainer doesn't have their extension on there, usually reaching out to them will have them upload it there too or as I mentioned, just clone the repo

Re: Lite XL: A lightweight text editor written in C and Lua

#117
post #91

It's actually a lovely editor. I've used it a few times in the past, and it's lightning quick, responsive and featherlike in terms of resource use, as if Sublime was open sourced. Lite XL doesn't have fancy features, no crazy plugins, it's just a great basic GUI editor.

You might also like SciTE.

Re: Lite XL: A lightweight text editor written in C and Lua

#118
post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if people actually remember how native apps are supposed to look like on any of the major platforms… Mac users, maybe. For all other platforms, churn and barely contained web apps are really wreaking havoc on the benefit of a uniform look and – most importantly – feel.

The massive changes in native UIs look and feel over the last couple decades really has made me double down on the CLI as the best interface. The CLI and the terminal are well established UIs with no big changes in a long time. The last big development I can think of is the use of sub-commands in addition to the normal command line call parameters. I now focus on making my shell/terminal environment as good as possib…

Visually it's not that different, of course, but I don't see a more unified interface in the terminal these days. The Amiga might have had it, with its TRIPOS arg parsing, and of course you got your language-integrated text UIs like Oberon.

But beyond that, it's a mirror of the graphical side. I mean, it's not like the GUI invented a lot of new widgets, either. There are still buttons and menus, it's just that they look and behave differently in each app. The same goes for the CLIs, where there's no rhyme or reason for all the long/short parameters, sub-commands etc.; To use the git metaphor, we're in a bathroom where all the porcelain is coming from different manufacturers and your got your brutalist toilet bowl next to your gold plated sink. And nobody knows what to do with the three shells.

Re: Lite XL: A lightweight text editor written in C and Lua

#119
post #36
post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if people actually remember how native apps are supposed to look like on any of the major platforms… Mac users, maybe. For all other platforms, churn and barely contained web apps are really wreaking havoc on the benefit of a uniform look and – most importantly – feel.

I'm a KDE user who really likes the classic Oxygen theme, and it's annoying when certain applications (e.g. Eclipse) just look way out of place. I managed to find a decent GTK port of the theme so even Emacs and Firefox are quite well-behaved. No idea what a Windows app looks like, though, I recently fixed my grandfather's Windows 8 laptop and immediately gave up trying to understand how theming is meant to work.

(As another KDE user) I'll second this. Electron-based apps seems to be the worst culprits -- ignore my preference settings for max/min/close buttons, frequently do away with the title bar altogether leaving me with no window resize/move and hiding away Application/Window settings options, no regard for themeing,... it's become a significant (read: near deal-breaker) for me trying out new apps.

Re: Lite XL: A lightweight text editor written in C and Lua

#120
post #25

Uses SDL for rendering the UI. While it makes it work cross-platform it unfortunately means it won't look like a native application. Then again, I don't think there's a C library which provides cross-platform native UI, only the Lazarus toolkit for Free Pascal and WxWidgets for C++.

Native UIs are becoming an anachronism pretty fast. Free-form web and electron based apps are becoming the norm and it won't be to long before people see native UI apps as some sort of weird throwback. IE. IMO that ship has sailed and using lower level/cross platform graphics stacks make a lot more sense these days.

"cross platform graphics stacks make a lot more sense"

Oh how they laughed when Sun tried this with Java some 25 years ago...

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